Wisconsin governor renews mask mandate

Wisconsin's governor on Friday extended a statewide mask mandate despite a legal challenge from conservatives, renewing an emergency health order requiring face coverings in public spaces to curb an alarming surge in COVID-19 infections.

Fred Katayama reports.

Wisconsinites will have to keep wearing masks into 2021.

The state’s Democratic governor Tony Evers extended Wisconsin’s mask mandate on Friday for another 60 days.

His initial order was set to expire Saturday.

The move comes just days after the state’s Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a lawsuit contesting Evers’ authority to impose his earlier face-covering mandate.

And it comes six months after that same court struck down a coronavirus stay-at-home order issued last spring, siding with a legal challenge brought by Republican lawmakers.

Mask-wearing has become deeply politicized in the United States even though medical experts insist it’s one of the most effective ways of breaking the virus’ transmission cycle.

Evers’ move to extend the mask order marked the latest in a series of new restrictions by state and local officials nationwide aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

He said more than a third of hospitals in his state are operating at peak capacity.