Gov. Tony Evers released a statement announcing Wisconsin will be in a state of public health emergency per Executive Order #90, effective immediately. 

This is accompanied by Executive Order #1 requiring all Wisconsinites to wear facial coverings while indoors or in any enclosed space in which a person who is not a member of their immediate family or current household is present.

According to Evers’ press release, these orders come after the state has seen an extreme spike in cases, specifically among 18- to 24-year-olds. Executive Order #90 cites college campuses as being a significant contributor to the rising number of positive COVID-19 cases.

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Executive Order #90 lists Madison and six other towns home to UW system campuses as some of the cities with the fastest growing rate of infection in the country. University of Wisconsin is set to move back to hybrid classes on Sept. 25 after transitioning to complete remote learning on Sept. 10. 

UW Professor Oguzhan Alagoz is a current expert on modeling infectious diseases including predicting and controlling the spread of COVID-19. In an email to The Badger Herald, Alagoz said the impact of these orders on the university’s cases is very contingent upon student compliance with the new policies. 

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“My overall opinion is favorable for the order, [but] how this will impact campus transmission is really hard to tell since it depends on students’ behaviors,” Alagoz said.

Wisconsin’s state of emergency is set to last for the next 60 days according to Executive Order #90. According to the press release, this is in part to prepare for the upcoming season in which Wisconsin typically sees an increase in respiratory transmitted diseases such as the flu.