Less than 48 hours before Governor Tony Evers announced he would be issuing a "shelter-in-place" order, the GOP leaders of the state legislature issued a statement on Saturday, saying they feel additional closures of businesses would be unnecessary.

The governor of the state can only declare a state of emergency for up to 60 days. After such time, it can only be extended by the state legislature. Given their verbiage on Saturday, it could be assumed that the emergency declaration would not last beyond mid-May.

Here is their statement in its entirety:

"As the state of Wisconsin faces the enormous challenges of responding to a public health crisis due to COVID-19, legislative leaders from both houses would like to acknowledge the efforts made by Wisconsin's health care workers, public health workers, and everyone else in the front lines of this pandemic. We would also like to thank the Evers' administration for their efforts to open up lines of communication so that we, as elected officials, are able to communicate as much as possible to our constituents as the situation changes on an hour-by-hour basis.

"With news that states around the country and even Illinois are moving to suspend business operations, we as legislative leaders agree with the Governor's statements on Friday that a further shutdown of businesses in Wisconsin is unnecessary. The consequences felt by citizens and small businesses around the state has already been tremendous.

"As we move forward together in this fight to defeat the virus, we must keep in mind that the people we serve need the jobs they have today to help weather this storm. Continued economic activity will not only help us in our fight against this virus today, it will also ensure that we don't have to fight to recover from economic collapse tomorrow."