× Expand Wisconsin Department of Health Services Web-Evers-04-12-2020 Gov. Tony Evers during an April 10 media briefing.

There are early signs that Wisconsin might escape the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak after more than two weeks under Gov. Tony Evers’ “safer at home” order. That does not mean government-mandated social distancing should end anytime soon, say public health officials. But that is not stopping the state’s largest business group and some Republican lawmakers from trying.

“Science will determine what reopening [the state] looks like and when that will happen,” Evers told reporters at an April 10 media briefing, adding the number of people infected by the virus is still expected to rise in the coming weeks. “Right now the curve is not bent and we need to make sure we are headed in the right direction.”

A March 26 report from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services estimated that 440 to 1,500 Wisconsin residents might die from COVID-19 by April 8 and 22,000 people could be infected by the coronavirus. As of April 12, the pandemic has killed 144 people in Wisconsin and there are 3,314 confirmed cases of coronavirus, although many more may have contracted the virus and just haven’t been tested.

Local public health officials are confident that progress has been made in limiting the spread of the outbreak. Public Health Madison & Dane County, in an April 9 statement, said “that physical distancing measures have produced promising outcomes so far” and there’s been a slow increase in positive cases of coronavirus in the county.

Sarah Mattes, spokesperson for Public Health Madison & Dane County, says the agency is “cautiously optimistic.”

“Yes, I would say that it's encouraging data,” Mattes tells Isthmus. “But it doesn’t mean we should stop social distancing. In fact, it’s why we need to follow the safer at home orders more than ever.”

The city of Madison is even asking residents to “double down on physical distancing and social solidarity.” Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway issued a stern warning April 12 on the city’s Facebook page: “DO NOT GATHER.”

“We’ve heard of neighborhood block parties or people who are meeting up to walk six feet apart. We understand the need to connect with friends and family, but any gathering is in violation of the order,” writes the mayor on Facebook. “Do not host parties, even if you’re outside, even if you’re six feet apart. The six feet apart guidance is for people you have to see — like at a grocery store — not a loophole for being able to see people you want to see.”

The city is also considering closing down or restricting vehicle access to parts of East Mifflin Street, Atwood Avenue, John Nolen Drive, Clyde Gallagher Avenue, and Vilas Park Drive to aid in social distancing for pedestrians.

Evers, for now, won’t say whether he might extend the “safer at home” order set to expire on April 24. Andrea Palm, the state’s health department secretary-designee, said during Evers’ April 10 media briefing that ordering Wisconsinites to stay at home is one of the state’s most effective weapons to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

“We used a variety of tools before we got to ‘safer at home.’ We assume we will use a variety of tools as we manage this in a more active way moving forward,” said Palm. “I certainly have not put a specific time frame on when we would pull back from ‘safer at home,’ because as we have said every day in this media briefing, we are following our data very closely.”

Evers told reporters “the last thing” he wants is to start lifting his unprecedented orders prohibiting social gatherings, shuttering most businesses and restricting travel only to have a resurgence of the virus.

“Yes, that could very well happen. That’s the thing about a novel disease. Nobody quite knows,” says Mattes. “We're working off the best information we have but it's uncharted territory. So that's why I think our guess would be that orders would be lifted incrementally and cautiously while we're able to see what the data is showing us about testing.”

But possible success in flattening the curve has already led to grumblings from Republicans in the Legislature and business advocacy groups. The state is estimating that the unemployment rate could reach as high as 27 percent — nearly three times higher than during the Great Recession from 2007-2009.

State Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg) released an April 10 statement calling for the state to “reevaluate” its COVID-19 policies and emphasized the economic pain being felt by social distancing measures. Stroebel did not respond to a request for comment.

“Every sickness and death is a tragedy, but so are businesses and livelihoods ruined by shelter in place orders. The same rings true for the pronounced negative impacts on civil liberties and quality of life,” writes Stroebel. “Besides being counterproductive, indefinite sheltering orders will eventually lead to civil disobedience. We need to begin planning an orderly method of reopening our civil life in stages to refresh our economy and liberties soon.”

Stroebel added that “the trajectory of cases and deaths in Wisconsin is many times lower than the initial projections” and the threat of overwhelming the state’s medical system is “not as imminent or inevitable as it may have seemed previously.”

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobby, and more than 50 business groups and local chambers of commerce, urged Evers in an April 9 letter not to extend the “safer at home” order that public health officials credit for flattening the curve in the state.

“Utilizing the April 24 expiration of the Safer at Home order as the target date will allow businesses and workers to engage in the planning necessary to relieve the current economic hardship, and importantly, demonstrate to Wisconsin citizens who are struggling that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” the business groups wrote.

The Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce did not sign the letter and has not made similar calls to reopen the state by April 24.

State Sen. Stephen Nass (R-Whitewater), according to the Associated Press, said that state health officials informed lawmakers that Evers’ shelter in place order might last six months. Palm told reporters April 10 that was not true.

“I have never had a conversation with them in which I said that the safer at home order would last six months,” said Palm. “What I said is that absent a vaccine or other medical interventions, we are going to continue to act to manage this epidemic. And considering where we are in the stage of clinical trials, that certainly is at least six months away.”

Wisconsin health officials remain focused on preventing a shortage of hospital beds should there be a surge in COVID-19 cases; shortages have strained health care systems in New York, New Jersey and other hotspots. The Army Corps of Engineers has already been mobilized to build an “alternative care facility” at the Wisconsin State Fair Park grounds in Milwaukee County, which has seen more than half of the confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state.

Officials are also ramping up more long-term measures, including efforts to rigorously track the virus. The state health department has already deployed an additional 120 “contact tracers” to assist local public health agencies.

“Once someone has a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis, it is extremely important to find out where they have been [and] who they've been in contact with so that we can try to further contain the spread of the virus,” Dr. Ryan Westergaard, the state’s chief medical officer and an epidemiologist for communicable diseases, told reporters on April 10. “We are going to have to do this for a long time, frankly. It might be a year or two years before we have the tools in place to eradicate or stamp out the infection all together.”

Twenty labs in the state now have the ability to test for the coronavirus, easing earlier concerns that prompted physicians to only test patients who might experience severe symptoms or complications from COVID-19. Palm says the state is now recommending that more people be tested, even those with minor symptoms.

Yet, Dane County tested fewer people this past week than it did two weeks ago.

“We are trying to figure out what's the reason there,” says Mattes. “Because we anticipated that, as more of the private labs added testing capabilities within the state, we'd see more tests run.”

Evers called on state lawmakers two weeks ago to take up two proposed bills — totaling more than $700 million — to address the pandemic. Westergaard says local public health departments need a “massive investment” to track the spread of the virus and to isolate and quarantine people who become infected with COVID-19.

“That’s really how you stop a pandemic,” said Westergaard. “We need to rebuild the public health infrastructure like we never have before.”

The Legislature is scheduled to virtually meet on April 14. Republicans hold solid majorities in both chambers of the Legislature and have yet to release many details on what lawmakers intend to pass or which parts of Evers’ relief packages they support.

In an April 10 joint statement, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) write they intend to take up legislation that “will allow Wisconsin to capture millions of federal dollars in addition to the $2 billion in [federal] coronavirus funding that will aid Wisconsin’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.”

Wisconsin’s spring election and presidential primary on April 7 — which was criticized nationwide for putting voters and poll workers at risk — might end up showing what happens when strict social distancing isn’t practiced.

The conservative-dominated Wisconsin Supreme Court, meeting virtually, quickly reversed an order from Evers on April 6 to postpone the election until June. The governor had previously tried to call the Legislature into session to take up the issue but GOP lawmakers responded by quickly gaveling in and out of the session without any debate.

The result was that some voters waited for hours in lines in Milwaukee and other cities to cast their ballots. Rhodes-Conway called the election “a travesty.”

Palm says the state, at this time, cannot confirm if any voters or poll workers became infected with the coronavirus because of the election. Mattes thinks safety measures at the polls and robust absentee voting in Dane County might have limited the spread of the virus. But the election still has public health officials worried.

“We don't know what effect the in-person election will have — it might be worse in some parts of the state than others,” says Mattes. “That's something that once we get past that kind of incubation period — about five to seven days — I think we'll all feel a little bit better about as well.”