Whitmer Defends Easing Michigan COVID-19 Restrictions
It's pretty crazy that Gov. Whitmer is having to defend her recent loosening of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions especially since she was extremely strict during the pandemic. Michiganders criticized the hell out of her for her restrictions and the same is happening as she eases up on some of those same restrictions.
Whitmer recently took some criticism from Dr. Anthony Fauci after he called her out on CNN last week. He said she was a good governor but he didn't necessarily approve of her decision to loosen some of Michigan's restrictions.
Dr. Anthony Fauci:
When you get the overwhelming majority of your population vaccinated, the chances of there being a surge are minuscule. So just hang in there, don’t turn the switch on and off, just pull back gradually, not all at once everything all things are off and everything goes, that’s not a good idea.
I'd say it's been gradual all along (if you can even call it that), she didn't just all of a sudden open the state up. We still have a bunch of restrictions in place. Yes, she bumped up capacity limits at restaurants and stadiums but she didn't open things up 100% and people are still required to wear facemasks.
According to MLive, Whitmer stood by the state’s reopening decisions:
I think that sometimes at the national level there is interchange between the thought that a state is dropping their mask requirement is the same as a state moving from 25% restaurants to 50% of restaurants.
She also talked about how cases of COVID-19 have been trending up in recent weeks.
We do see our numbers up. We have the variants, which are highly contagious, and we’ve re-engaged these things. So he’s concerned, I’m concerned, Dr. J’s concerned.
All we can do is hope people will get their vaccine shot so we can get back to the way things were prior to March of 2020.