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Court strikes down Wisconsin stay-at-home order

The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down governor Tony Evers’ coronavirus stay-at-home orders on Wednesday. Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman breaks down the latest developments.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: First though, I do want to talk more about the reopening and the potential risks of doing that, a couple of headlines that we've been watching on that front. A Wisconsin Supreme Court saying that the state's health commissioner was not justified in shutting down the state. In addition to that, we have a whistleblower who's testifying on Capitol Hill today about what happened prior to the shutdowns and now what could happen coming out of them.

Rick Newman is covering all of that for us. Rick, where do you want to start? With Rick Bright and his testimony today?

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RICK NEWMAN: Sure. This is a former top infectious disease specialist in the government. He's basically been sidelined because he was critical of Alex Azar, the secretary of Health and Human Services, for not responding faster. So in written testimony-- he is testifying now-- but in his written statement, he said that if we get this wrong, this outbreak could be as bad as the Spanish flu in 1918, which killed 50 million people. That's way higher than the death toll we've seen from coronavirus so far.

And the one thing he said that's getting a lot of attention this morning, quote, "without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history." So winter is coming if we don't get this right. The steps he does say we need to take, the most important one, and he's echoing a lot of other people who say we need a comprehensive national testing strategy, not simply leaving it to the states and cities to do it in an ad hoc way.

JULIE HYMAN: But in the meantime, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is saying do leave it to the states, right, or leave it-- maybe leave it to the businesses in the states. So what's the-- what are the implications of that ruling?

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah. The state Supreme Court in Wisconsin basically said leave it to the counties. There are 72 counties in Wisconsin, and they are now the deciders in terms of what the restrictions are. So Wisconsin is the poster child for political dysfunction over the coronavirus in the United States.

The governor, Tony Evers, is a Democrat. The legislature is Republican. And they simply cannot coordinate and get along and figure out a coordinated response. So the Republican legislature, and now the Republican Supreme Court, wants the state to reopen.

And Tony Evers says, this is foolish. We need to continue lockdowns and open up on a step-wide basis only when we can. But he lost, and there are now bars open in parts of Wisconsin.

I mean, some cities are saying, nope, we're-- we don't care what the Supreme Court said. We're still going to keep a lot of places closed. But if you really want to catch the coronavirus in a bar, you can do it in Wisconsin.

- Hey, Rick, so what happens, you know, politically-- obviously, from a humanity standpoint it's not good-- but what happens politically to these people who are pushing for the state to-- to reopen if we start to see a huge increase in coronavirus cases? I mean, Florida, another state that's really pushing for reopening or has areas that are reopened, is seeing increases every day of cases. So what do you-- what do you think will happen to these politicians who really pushed for this if their constituency ends up seeing a really deleterious effect from the virus?

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, will there be any accountability for politicians who are pushing reopening too soon? I mean, obviously, we don't know the answer to this, and it's still an open question what's going to happen as some places reopen. It is worth pointing out that there are parts of the country that have very low incidence rates of coronavirus, and they probably can be open, especially in rural areas where they can be opened with precautions, distancing rules, and other things like that.

But it's-- I mean, density really is an issue here. And the less dense the population, the more quickly you can reopen. Let's keep in mind, Governor Cuomo here in New York, he's been very aggressive about business closings. But he-- even he is saying the state can begin to reopen in some areas, and then you, quote, "watch the dials to see how it goes."

But another factor to keep in mind here is that even in places where there are a lot of reopenings, that does not mean people are just going out because the governor said you can. The polls show pretty clearly strong majorities of people are not ready to go back out, and they think it's too early to reopen. So there are a lot of places where even you-- even though you reopen, people are not showing up. But look, there were lots of footage of bars in parts of Wisconsin last night that looked pretty full. So we will see what happens in those kinds of places and when there's-- whether there's any accountability if things go wrong and the virus resurges.

JULIE HYMAN: To your point, though, Rick, there's also been reports out of China that in places where we've seen reopenings there of shopping malls, for example, that people have not come. So we'll see how this plays out across the United States. Rick Newman, thank you.