Michigan extends COVID-19 health order for 1 month, adds new rules for kids

[SouthBayDem]

Source: Detroit Free Press

Michigan is extending for one month its current COVID-19 restrictions, which require mask wearing, limited capacity at most businesses, 50% indoor dining, small private gatherings and testing for youth athletics.

The move comes after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and state health officials repeatedly pleaded with Michiganders to get vaccines, wear masks and practice other safety measures in an effort to avoid further restrictions. While Republicans have applauded the governor's resistance to calls for more rules, federal health officials have said they are the only way for Michigan to put an end to what has become the nation's worst COVID-19 outbreak.

The changes include new requirements for children as young as 2 to start wearing masks.

"Beginning April 26, the face mask requirement includes children ages 2-4 and a good faith effort must be made to ensure that these children wear masks while in gatherings at childcare facilities or camps," reads a statement from the state health department.

Read more: https://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2021/04/16/michigan-covid-19-health-order-kid/7234835002/

[IronLionZion]

1. Michigan should be a warning to others that this pandemic is far from over

There are hotspots in north Texas and other rural areas of the midwest and southeast.

[Cal Carpenter]

2. Half-assed bullshit. Whitmer shouldn't have LOOSENED restrictions in early March

when scientists were warning of this upcoming surge from the variant.

I don't understand why she did that in the first place, and why she won't backtrack and tighten it back up. This is not good enough. And we can't only blame the repubs - there's a myth out there that they stripped her of her powers but she's still able to use the state health dept to make restrictions (like these not-even-half-measures announced today) if she chose to.

This is too little, too late.

Hospitals are full, triage tents are being set up. And when you look at county-level vaccination data, many of the rural counties have the highest rates in the state so far, so all of the assumptions people have about who is getting vaccinated and who has stopped being careful are bunk.

In my VERY blue Michigan town, the restaurants are as packed as they can be (50%) every time I pass through downtown and peek through their open doors and windows. The streets are filled with maskless people. One local restaurant (who has safely been doing carryout only all along) is begging the city to stop blocking off streets to allow pedestrians to hang out because it is encouraging people to behave in unsafe ways. This is not just a partisan problem.

Michigan is so fucked right now.

[Kaleva]

3. The hospitals in Upper Michigan have very few COVID19 patients in ICUs

Mask compliance is very high from what I see and the a little over 40% of the resdients in my home county are fully vaccinated.

In regards to the below, Upper Michigan is Region 8.

Region 8 - Chippewa, Mackinac, Luce, Schoolcraft, Delta, Alger, Marquette, Dickinson, Menominee, Baraga, Iron, Gogebic, Ontonagon, Houghton and Keweenaw counties.

https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/0,9753,7-406-98159-523641--,00.html

[James48]

4. I'm seeing bad news.

I’m near Mackinaw City. Actual wearing of masks has dropped to only about 50% compliance. Everybody running around maskless, and the numbers of infections skyrocketing. They just don’t care.

[roamer65]

5. The thumb area of MI is learning this virus is not a "hoax", nor "fake news".

It is getting slammed HARD.

I am hearing of dire cases and deaths.