On Wednesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled to overturn the state-wide lockdown order, inspiring hordes of people to break social distancing measures and flock to their local bars for a celebratory drink, CBS News reported.
In response to the court ruling and subsequent bar crowding, Governor Tony Evers spoke out to warn Wisconsinites that the state will now certainly experience even more coronavirus cases and, tragically, more deaths, too.
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In a 4-3 ruling on Wednesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with Republican lawmakers against Democratic Gov. Evers’ stay-at-home order.
The order, which was set to expire on May 26, was overturned, with Republicans arguing that Health Secretary-designee Andrea Palm abused her powers when she extended the order in April.
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“Rulemaking exists precisely to ensure that kind of controlling, subjective judgment asserted by one unelected official, Palm, is not imposed in Wisconsin,” Chief Justice Patience Roggensack wrote in the majority opinion.
The ruling took effect on Wednesday night with bars across the state opening their doors to patrons once again.
And suffice it to say, thirsty Wisconsinites were eager to leave their homes and return to their favorite bars.
Photos and video footage from inside packed pubs all across the state show hordes of people disregarding social distancing measures and forgoing face masks as they enjoy the sort of bustling bar environment that existed in a pre-coronavirus world.
One photo from a crowded bar in Platteville has gone viral online after staff revealed people showed up for a drink less than an hour after the supreme court’s ruling.
“45 minutes after the bars open in Wisconsin,” the official Twitter account for Nick’s bar captioned the photo of locals swarming the location on Wednesday evening.
A since-deleted video from the bar previously went viral as well, showing patrons packed tightly together inside the location with some going so far as to dance on the bar top in celebration of the lockdown lift.
*CBS News* shared troubling footage from inside the Buzzard’s Nest bar in West Allis where patrons expressed their joy over the court’s ruling.
One bar-goer, Hayden Krueger, told the outlet he came out to the bar that night because he found the experience of self-isolating at home to be “boring.”
“I love my fiancee, but there’s only so much we can handle from each other without having interaction with other people,” he explained.
On Thursday, President Trump publicly tweeted to congratulate the state of Wisconsin for its “win” over its Democrat governor.
“The Great State of Wisconsin, home to Tom Tiffany’s big Congressional Victory on Tuesday, was just given another win,” he wrote . “Its Democrat Governor was forced by the courts to let the State Open.”
“The people want to get on with their lives. The place is bustling!”
Gov. Evers, however, was certainly less excited about the ruling and predicted its grim outcome in an interview with *MSNBC*’s Ali Velshi on Wednesday night.
“When you have no requirements anymore, that’s a problem,” he said. “We’re just leaving it open. We’re going to have more cases. We’re going to have more deaths. And it’s a sad occasion for the state. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.”
As of writing, Wisconsin has reported over 11,000 positive COVID-19 cases and 434 deaths. On Thursday, the day after the state re-opened, Wisconsin experienced the third-largest daily peak of new cases for the month.
