As a Michigan resident, sometimes I’m happy to see my state in the news. This is not one of those times.
As you may have heard, we are the new epicenter of America’s COVID-19 crisis. Caseloads are spiking and so are hospitalizations.
What happened? What is Gov. Gretchen Whitmer doing? What is she not doing?
This weekend I tried to answer those questions with a new piece at HuffPost, by talking to knowledgable authorities here and, yes, taking a look around.
There’s no single reason for COVID spike, experts tell me. Rather, it’s a combination of factors, including the early arrival of the B.117 variant here and the way people are behaving now. One of our local media outlets, MLive, just ran a remarkable story from Michigan's “thumb,” where the test positivity rate is 32% (!) and merchants will happily tell you they don't care if you wear a mask.
All of that led up to Friday's announcement from Whitmer, calling for a two-week return to a more vigilant posture. She asked residents to avoid indoor dining. She also asked school districts to suspend certain after-school activities and to stick to/return to remote learning for high school students.
But notice the key word there: “asked.” She did not order these things, as many public health experts had urged.
This surprised a lot of people, given the acclaim Whitmer got for tough stances on public health last year. But in a little-noticed episode from January, her then-secretary of health, Robert Gordon, abruptly resigned on the day she announced reduced restrictions on indoor dining.
Internal emails, obtained later by the Detroit News, showed that he wanted to move more slowly. Experts like Anthony Fauci have since suggested that Michigan was among the states that probably re-opened too quickly.
The context for this is the relentless, ongoing opposition she's faced from Republicans and their supporters. They want her to dial back existing restrictions even further, notwithstanding the current data. And that's not to mention the plot against Whitmer's life that the FBI said it foiled last year.
Whitmer's other big ask Friday was pointed at Washington. She wants a surge in vaccines. The Biden administration responded by saying it would send vaccinators and supplies, but not shots. Whitmer says the state needs the supply; Biden officials say Michigan has the supply.
Yes, you are detecting some tension there.
If the available public data is correct -- and that's always a big “if” -- the state's progress at getting shots into arms is about at the national average, maybe even a tiny bit below. So not terrible, but not so great either.
Independent maps from "vaccine spotters" suggest appointments are easy to find outside the big cities, including some of the hotspot areas where people are least interested in social distancing. And that pattern isn't just restricted to Michigan, which not coincidentally is not the only state where caseloads are rising.
Vaccination is working and an end to the pandemic is in sight. But how long it takes us to get there and the casualties we suffer along the way are still to be determined.
Here's a link to the full report that ran at HuffPost:
Thank you for reading.