JANESVILLE, Wis. — Rock County Public Health has announced the return to Phase One of its reopening plan after seeing more than 2,300 new COVID-19 cases in just the first 16 days of November.
That means offices, restaurants and stores will go from 50% capacity restrictions to 25%, among other changes.
“Nine months with the 25% and 50% (limitations), it has done absolutely nothing. So what are they doing? Implementing the same fiasco of trying to curb this by going back to 25%. What is that going to do? Nothing,” said Italian House owner Edmund Halabi.
Halabi said he feels like small businesses are bearing the brunt of the pandemic, and being unfairly targeted when the cases numbers go up. He claims larger stores, schools and factories aren’t as restricted as mom-and-pop businesses.
He sees the return to Phase One as just another bandage put on the pandemic. Instead, he wants to see Governor Tony Evers enact a statewide shutdown for at least two weeks.
“It’s not going to work. This 25% (capacity limit) is not going to bring the count down. I say shut it down. We’re already in a financial economic woe,” said Halabi. “We are willing to put our lives, our financial lives on hold for two weeks to get this done more effectively.”
During the pandemic, Rock County has seen almost 8,000 cases. Rock County Public Health said 30% of those were reported from Nov. 1-16. At the same time, hospitals are nearing capacity and struggling with staffing shortages.
“This is a good opportunity for the entire community to pause and look at their behaviors, look at what they’re doing and to go back to those initial guidelines: social distancing, wearing your mask, using hand sanitizer, washing your hands, getting your flu shot, staying home if you’re ill,” said Eric Thornton, president of SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Janesville.
He said the amount of people with COVID at St. Mary’s has more than doubled in the past 3-4 weeks.
Thornton said the public has the ability to turn the numbers around. But he and other health leaders are worried the Thanksgiving holiday could make things worse.
“I think what is concerning is as we hear about the high number of individuals that are newly diagnosed with COVID, those are then folks that have the potential to be hospitalized 1, 2, 3 weeks from now,” said Thornton.
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