The Wisconsin Senate voted Tuesday to repeal the statewide mask mandate. If this mask mandate is abolished, Wisconsin will be joining a list of other memorable states without federal mask mandates. Gracing this list are Alabama, Oklahoma, Missouri and Nebraska, all states people spend their lives dreaming of visiting.
Students of UW-Madison have a lot to say about the Senate’s decision. Leader of the College Republicans of UW-Madison club has issued a statement revealing they will be going out in a bar-crawl style celebration to all restaurants and stores in Madison without masks if the bill gets passed. When told there will most likely still be a local mask mandate for the city of Madison, he responded stating the club will pay for buses to take them to a neighboring county where there is no mask mandate.
A member of PIKE told us “yeah I didn’t wear my mask before, but now when I see someone wearing it, I can say ‘take that off, it’s the law’… it’s totally epic!”
Gym-rat Freshman Scottie was confused when asked for his take on the Senate's vote. He told us he thought COVID-19 was already over. Scottie said “he knew Covid was over when he saw the vaccination rollout happening in the Nick.” He fist bumped a grandma while waiting in line at the Nick, and when she didn’t reciprocate, he pulled down his mask and said “WTF?” The grandma sadly passed away of COVID-19 related symptoms shortly after the interaction.
Not only will the mask repeal most likely contribute to a rise in COVID-19 cases, the mandate is tied to a bill that grants 50 million dollars a month in federal food stamp money. Thus, if the mask mandate is repealed the federal food stamp money will no longer be granted to the state. Business major Troy Hersh stated “if it means we don’t have to wear masks, I don’t care about the poor people. As my dad says, ‘survival of the fittest.’”
