Businesses Outside WI may look elsewhere, seeing COVID Raging out of Control!

Like everyone else, the suffocating spread of COVID-19 is making the simple act of going to the store a psychological nail biter. 

COVID? What COVID? Thanks to Republican enablers and the State Supreme Court, the odds of getting the virus are increasing, dramatically. Still, at least Sen. Scott Fitzgerald easily won his election to congressman by a disinterested conservative QAnon base of voters. 

 

While Wisconsin Republicans sit back letting COVID-19 ravage the state on Gov. Tony Evers watch, which they hope to use against him in 2022, the state Supreme Court will likely strike down Evers' mask mandate. 

But surprisingly, area businesses are finally realizing their anti-regulation legislative allies are killing them and their costumers. About time, or too late?

The Truth, and a Warning: Conservative columnist and president of the Wisconsin Technology Council has changed his tune over the last year, especially on rural broadband, and offers up this business warning (I will be reminding voters of this article in 2022 as well): 

The Wisconsin economy would recover much faster if the state held the national eye a while longer by demonstrating it can stop the spread of COVID-19.

That’s hardly a confidence builder for existing businesses, many of which continue to struggle to keep their doors open, or for business executives outside Wisconsin who may look elsewhere to locate or expand. If you view Wisconsin as a bizarre, noncompliant outlier in the fight against COVID, you might think twice about opening that new location.

Knowing the COVID-19 pandemic is hurting Wisconsin’s business climate and consumer confidence, many business associations have banded together under the flag of the “Stop the Spread” coalition. It has produced public service announcements, enlisting the help of marquee sports teams and respected figures to urge people to take simple prevention steps.

The shocking lack of accountability demonstrated in the election and more unbelievably, Scott Fitzgerald's easy Congressional win, offers up little hope conservative voters care or will ever learn any lessons from our FAILED "freedom and liberty" induced raging outbreak. 

How bad is it?

WMTV: The spread of COVID-19 across Wisconsin is off the charts, literally.

So many counties are so far past the Dept. of Health Services' highest classification for case activity, that it needed to create a brand new category. And, although its minimum cutoff is nearly three times higher than the old top category. Nearly every Wisconsin county surpassed that threshold. The entire state too.

"Balance?" Business Tips Scale...: While Covid-19 is killing business and scaring away customers, the denialists at Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce believe we can "balance public safety with business concerns," which we're seeing IS NOT WORKING:

(WMC (and) manufacturers’ association and safety council … question the St. Croix County Board of Supervisors legal authority it has to issue a “Chapter 41 COVID-19 Communicable Disease Ordinance” that would require most people to wear facemasks indoors and limit gatherings to 25 percent of occupancy limits … "(It would) inflict significant economic harm on residents and businesses."

WMC’s letter explains that the ordinance is, “bad public policy that will simply create confusion, uncertainty, and fear, which will negatively impact local employers, workers, and customers.”

Dumber still, while the pandemic is seeing enrollment declines, as schools closed down for safer online classes, the Koch brothers Americans for Prosperity actually said this, ignoring the pandemic:

“Now is not the time to pump $1.4 billion of new taxpayer dollars into an education system that saw a huge decline in enrollment and is not meeting the needs of these families.”

The DPI budget request includes $1.48 billion in new state tax revenue appropriations for public schools and alters the funding formula to address declining enrollment from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, WMC heard the point blank truth, yet as mentioned above, it's was just not what they wanted to hear:

AP: The only way to stop the coronavirus pandemic from getting even worse in Wisconsin is to “triple down,” individually and collectively, on public health measures, the state’s business leaders learned in a bleak update Wednesday.  Dr. Mark Kaufman, chief medical officer for the Wisconsin Hospital Association, at a virtual meeting of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce said, 

“We really know what works, we just need to do it and we all need to do it. We can flatten the curve, but right now that’s the only way we will flatten the curve.”