Here & Now

Turning the Dial to Reopen Wisconsin

Frederica Freyberg:

The reopenings come the same week Wisconsin saw its largest one-day increase in coronavirus cases. Earlier I talked with Governor Evers in our weekly one-on-one interview and, governor, thank you so much for joining us again.

Tony Evers:

Thank you Frederica. Appreciate it.

Frederica Freyberg:

So it’s actually now the second day in a row that we’ve seen the largest day-over-day increases in positive cases. It stands at 460 more cases reported today, for a total now of 7,314, with 327 people who have died. How do these numbers bode for that 14-day downward trajectory required to reopen the state?

Tony Evers:

Well, we have to remember that 14-day downward trend is the number of positive cases divided by — as a percentage of the total number of tests. So we are testing a lot more. Now, there’s no question that — so I think a couple days ago, the number, the percentage of positive tests were about 6% or 7%. Now they’re 11% or 12%. So that is an increase in that percentage. But that is, you know, I’m not a mathematician here on those numbers, but the bottom line is we were testing a lot of people in Brown County that worked in those meat-packing plants, and so the large number is a lot contributed to that. I won’t say all, but a lot. But we’re spending — we want to massively increase testing across the state, but at this point in time, because of that surge there, we are testing many people that have the virus.

Frederica Freyberg:

I think I’m reading these numbers correctly from the Department of Health Services’ daily kind of tracking of these numbers. It looks like we’re testing around 3,000 a day, and yet we have this capacity now of 11,000.

Tony Evers:

Right.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why aren’t we able to get up to that capacity that we have?

Tony Evers:

Well, several reasons. One is — and we’re encouraging health care providers to do this. My goal is anybody that needs a test should have a test. I know that sounds like Donald Trump, but that is what we have to do. We do have enough testing materials. It’s getting people tested. And we have enough lab capacity. So we, you know, I think we have — I’m trying to think, almost 3500 today. So we are ramping up. We’ve increased testing. We have plans all across the state. Northwest Wisconsin is going to have lots in the next couple days, but so is the rest of the state. I believe we can get to that 80,000 number in a hurry. We’ve been focusing on Green Bay and some of the other areas where there are surges and all those are disconcerting, and so, but it’s important for us to have testing all across the state. We will do that. That has to be our goal.

Frederica Freyberg:

In fact, you announced today that you’re kind of branching out and doing community testing. Is that part of your effort to reach this capacity, to do more testing?

Tony Evers:

Absolutely. For example, Pepin and I’m trying to think which other county in northwest Wisconsin, Pepin and Buffalo County are having tests on May 1. And, yes, it’s going to be community testing. If people feel that they want to be tested, they’ll get tested. And so we’re doing that all across the state. We’ve been kind of reactive. But we’ve also — I’m encouraging and I’ve said this more times than I want lot, health officials that are dealing with people, they should be ordering these tests. That is part of all of our jobs to make sure we get as many people tested as possible.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, you opened up more businesses to things like curbside pickups and reopened most state parks this week. Was this in response to criticism, or is it just time?

Tony Evers:

Yeah. We look all the time. I mean, we are constantly vigilant on what we can do next. And it’s always weighing the risk and the transmission of a disease versus economics. And we’re always doing that. So we felt confident in the curbside work. Actually, the night from the day we asked it, I saw advertisements on TV for businesses advertising their curbside transactions. So we’ve — in that case, we narrowed it down to one consumer or two consumers and one person from a store doing their work at the curbside. That seems logical. We can control virus transmission that way. So we’re always looking for better ways to do it, and we’ll continue to do that. We obviously have a stay-at-home thing until the end of the month, but we’ll also be looking to the end of the month.

Frederica Freyberg:

How open are you to plans like those from the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, which kind of assign risks to individual businesses and where they are and how many cases there are in those places? How open are you to that plan?

Tony Evers:

Well, they have some that are — parts of the plan that seem reasonable, but they also have, they did not include the public health side of things and that is we need to have, we need to drive down the number of viruses in the state. And the only way we can do that is testing, tracing and having the appropriate equipment. That’s what Donald Trump laid out for us, frankly, along with the CDC. So we’re still following that. But I don’t dismiss what they’re doing. I’m just saying that there has to be a public health connection there.

Frederica Freyberg:

Are you now working with Republican legislative leaders, the very same ones who took you to the Supreme Court to sue the administration over on the extension of the “stay at home” orders? But are you working with them to kind of work something out here?

Tony Evers:

Well, I would say we’re not in that position. Clearly, we had a plan, and their response to it was taking me to court, the Supreme Court. So now that’s playing out in, you know, who knows how that’s going to work out. But I’d say if we rely on the facts and the law and precedent, we should win. But at the end of the day, if they have a plan, let’s talk about it. And we keep them informed. My staff meet with his staff regularly. We’ve encouraged their staff to be part of our — to watch our — be part of the center of — at Truax Field that we have with our emergency management. So there’s not that there’s not communication going on. They have a plan, I’ll be glad to take a look at it.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Governor Tony Evers, thank you very much for joining us.

Tony Evers:

Thanks, Frederica. Have a good day. Stay well.