ASHWAUBENON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – COVID-19 cases in the state are on the rise almost two months after Wisconsin’s “Safer at Home” order was struck down.
“We had a really good, science-based plan that everybody chose to ignore and now we’re in the situation we’re in,” said Prevea President and CEO, Dr. Ashok Rai.
Prevea Health President and CEO Dr. Ashok Rai.
Rai said testing more people doesn’t necessarily mean we should be seeing more positive cases.
“I think there’s this misconception that if you test too many people, you’ll get positives and that’s just normal,” he said. “No, it’s not normal. Actually, I want to test everybody and find a negative result, because then we can be done with all this.”
State leaders say most newly confirmed cases are coming from a specific age group.
“We especially need our young people to step up as we have seen a concerning increase in cases in Wisconsinites ages 20-29,” said Gov. Tony Evers.
“That will continue to spread and it will spread to at-risk age groups at some point and that’s our biggest concern,” said Rai.
Rai said wearing a mask in public would reduce the number of cases significantly.
“I don’t understand the pushback, but somebody’s always going to push back on something. You go back 30 years and people probably pushed back on seat belts,” he said. “What it does is it protects us and it protects businesses. A large portion of the push to reopen was the economic effect of COVID-19. Well if you truly care about the economy, then you are pro-mask, because what will keep the economy going is wearing a mask. The easiest thing to shut down a business right now is 14 day quarantines for your employees mandated by public health because you did not mask”
Dr. Rai doesn’t believe there will be a statewide mandate requiring all Wisconsinites to wear a mask in public, but said businesses should step up and require its employees to use a face covering.
“That’s an ordinance that’s much easier to pass than trying to enforce somebody walking into a business, but there’s absolutely no reason we can’t have an ordinance for businesses. Obviously, I would love more of a global ordinance, I just don’t think in our political environment that we’re going to get one,” said Rai. “We couldn’t even agree on how to open the state, so we just opened it up. I don’t see how we’re going to agree on masking.”
“We’re looking at it, but frankly the Supreme Court has made it much more complex than what it ever should have been,” said Evers.
Dr. Rai said kids younger than two and some people who have obstructive lung disease are the only ones who shouldn’t wear a mask.
“That’s a very small percentage of the population,” said Rai. “It’s not the 60 to 70 percent of people we see out there not wearing a mask.”
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