Nowhere in America is the coronavirus pandemic more out of control than in Michigan.
Outbreaks appear to have engulfed the workplace, restaurants, churches and family weddings. Hospitals are overwhelmed with patients. Officials report more than 7,000 new infections each day, an increase of seven times since the end of February. And in Michigan live nine of the ten metro areas with the country’s highest recent cases.
During previous trainings in Michigan, a staunch Gov. Gretchen Whitmer closed businesses and schools as she saw fit – over praise and protest. But this time, Mrs. Whitmer very much stopped with the heavy closures that made her a lightning rod.
“Policy change alone will not change the tide,” she said. Whitmer said Friday while asking – but not ordering – that the public should take a two-week break from indoor dining, high school and youth sports. “We all need to act here and take personal responsibility.”
This is a rare moment in the pandemic: a sensational Democratic governor who pleas of doctors and epidemiologists in her state, and rather calls for voluntary action by the public to control the spread of the virus. Restaurants and pubs are still limited, Detroit Tigers fans are back in the stadium and most schools have welcomed students into the classroom.
The new position of Mrs. Whitmer reflects the shifting politics of the pandemic, shaped more by growing public impatience with restrictions and the hope that vaccines offer, than by any reassessment among public health authorities as to how the virus can best be prevented.
Her approach, invoking individual responsibility over nationwide restrictions, may have been taken from the playbook of a Republican-elected official, and she appears to be trying to get the Biden government’s attention on Friday because she requested to send extra vaccine doses to her, refused. besieged state.
This approach has given an unexpected expression to the approval of Republicans in Michigan, who control the State Legislature and have so far fought against Whitmer’s decisions.
State Representative Beau LaFave, a Republican from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, said that patience for the governor’s rules had long since evaporated in his district and that Whitmer was correct in not imposing additional restrictions, even if he did. reports on new cases are approaching them. peak and deaths continued to increase.
“She should have done it all the time,” he said. LaFave said, “which allowed individuals to do risk assessments on their own health.”
Even many Democrats in Michigan seem to agree that the time to shut things down may have been over.
Mayor Sheldon Neeley of Flint said he was concerned about the strong increase in new business, but that he did not currently meet the restrictive restrictions of Ms. Whitmer does not advocate. Mr. Neeley, a Democrat, had earlier in the pandemic issued strict attention to his own city, but said he doubted such measures would have the same impact now.
“Those things were effective,” he said. “I think it will be less effective if you try to use the same tools and tactics as once.”
There is also re-election in the background. Michigan is a now divided state, Whitmer’s office will be in the vote next year and Republicans feel an opportunity.
“This is the biggest thing in 100 years,” Jack O’Malley, a Republican member of the Michigan House, said of the pandemic. “I would say it should be 80 percent of the reason why someone is going to vote for her or not.”
Nevertheless, a small but growing number of doctors and public health officials are appealing to me. Whitmer to take much more aggressive action as things get worse by the day.
There is no single reason why Michigan has been hit so hard in the past few weeks, although the latest boom is partly attributed to the B.1.1.7 variant that was originally identified in Britain and is widespread in the state. Recent infections suggest that small social gatherings have caused the increase in cases, which is difficult to target with government restrictions. Children are also responsible for a higher percentage of cases, with jumping holidays and sporting events for the youth.
Several hospitals in Michigan have delayed some elective procedures over the past week because a spate of coronavirus patients has been underestimating their resources. Smaller, rural hospitals struggled to find urban hospitals that could accept their coronavirus patients in need of intensive care beds. One doctor in Lansing described that five such patients were admitted within five hours.
“It’s hard for me to have hope if I do not see the basic public health precautions being implemented and maintained,” said Debra Furr-Holden, an epidemiologist at Michigan State University. . ‘If we continue as we go, we will continue to get what we got, it’s this stream down and these nails. It will be a vicious cycle and the vaccines cannot keep up. ”
The balance between politics and public health, never simple, has become even more volatile as the pandemic enters a second year. Residents are exhausted, business owners are faltering, and unlike last year, no other state sees a similar boom.
There is also reason for optimism that distinguishes this virus spike from those that have come before: One in three Michigan residents has begun the vaccination process and one in five has been fully immunized. As older residents get vaccinations quickly, health officials say most people now infected with the coronavirus are younger than 65, a less vulnerable population. Whitmer, who got her first shot on Tuesday, therefore pointed to vaccines – rather than new closures – as the way out for this moment.
‘I just want to get back to normal as usual. I’m tired of this, “Whitmer said at a news conference on Friday, defending her strategy for the coming weeks. “But the variants in Michigan we are currently facing will not be contained if we do not do vaccinations as quickly as possible.”
Mrs. Whitmer, whose administration reversed restrictions last month when virus cases were relatively low, pushed President Biden in a Thursday night call for extra vaccines to address the boom. Mr. Biden refused, and the government said Friday that they are continuing to allocate vaccines based on the adult population.
A state official with knowledge of the call, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation, said the president had expressed concern about the weakened restrictions in Michigan, but appeared to have inaccurate information about which restrictions apply. The officer said that Whitmer told Mr. Biden explained that capacity is limited in restaurants, gyms and social gatherings, and that masks are still needed.
However, the Whitmer government does not rule out a stricter approach. Elizabeth Hertel, director of the Department of Health and Human Services in Michigan, said she was optimistic that the continued explosion of vaccines and the governor’s new recommendations would help reduce case numbers. But if that does not happen, she said, more restrictions are possible.
“If we were to get to a point where the healthcare system says, ‘We are overwhelmed and we can not care for Covid patients other than our regular patients that we see,’ then we may have to talk about further limitations,” she said. Hertel said in an interview.
Even health officials in the country, who have been advocating for the public for more than a year to wear masks and distance themselves from society, have not pushed Ms Whitmer to impose new restrictions.
Linda Vail, the health officer in Ingham County, which includes most of Lansing, said some residents became lax about masking and other preventative measures, just as the cases began to increase again. Me. Vail recommended that schools in her country discontinue personal tutoring after the spring break. And she has a mandate to restrict outdoor gatherings in an area near the Michigan State University campus.
But she feels little appetite for the kind of drastic restrictions seen at the outset of the pandemic.
“I think we’re at a point where people are just going to ignore restrictions,” she said. Vail said, which told of a recent trip to a gym whose once-zealous customers now use careers without masks. “And honestly, restrictions across the country are going to cause significant setbacks.”
Dr. Mark Hamed, the medical director of several rural provinces in Michigan, said he had lost sleep over the past few days because he was worried about how to get the boom in his region under control.
On Thursday, he spent 90 minutes brainstorming with his peers from across the country. The group did not once discuss whether the governor should close businesses and schools again, he said.
“I think people are definitely tired,” he said, adding that since the latest boom, he has noticed that more people are choosing to wear masks alone. “They see how their neighbors are affected and their loved ones are affected, and they start changing behavior.”
Mayor Pauline Repp said that in Port Huron, a particularly hard-hit region northeast of Detroit, the effects are strong and fill the hospitals.
Mrs. Repp said he sympathizes with the position the governor and the health department were in last year when Michigan hospitals overflowed and strict rules for movement were put in place. But she said some people have lost patience as the months have gone by, and the rules of Michigan still remain, even when the case has fallen.
“I almost think it had a bit of a setback in some ways,” Ms Repp said.
The latest boom has made life difficult in Port Huron. Public schools went back to online education. City Hall closed this week after too many workers tested positive. According to her, however, it is common to see retailers at Walmart or the Meijer grocery store refusing to wear face masks.
“It was a long time,” Ms Repp said. ‘It’s a long time to be limiting and you’re getting to the point where you think,’ will life ever be normal again? ”