A year ago, Michiganders who left their homes were required to follow masking and social distancing requirements. They couldn’t go to bars, theaters or bowling alleys: All were closed to stop the spread of COVID-19. Older kids returning to school had to wear masks.
Now, Michigan’s weekly average of new cases is double what it was a year ago. But with highly effective vaccines available to everybody who wants one, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer hasn’t restored any of those more restrictive mandates.
“We’re in a very different position than we were back then right now,” Whitmer said in a scrum with reporters last week.
Whitmer built a national reputation by acting quickly and decisively in putting some of the country’s toughest COVID-19 restrictions in place last year. But at the tail end of 2021 – even as cases creep up, school resumes and the Delta variant surges nationally -- she’s focused on helping people and local authorities make their own decisions.
“Every one of us has the tools we need to stay safe, and that’s why we are encouraging these decisions be made at the local level. That increases the odds that people will follow them and will adhere to them when they feel as though they’ve had an opportunity to have some input, and that’s why this is such an important thing that these decisions are happening at the local level,” Whitmer said.
It’s an approach some health experts laud, and Republicans support. But some, too, are concerned it’s creating a patchwork of rules when the science shows actions like universal masking in schools, where unvaccinated children are vulnerable, would help slow the spread of COVID-19 everywhere.
Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail has issued a mask order for schools, but noted some school districts span multiple counties.
“There’s definitely some difficulty in putting together all the pieces of the puzzle when you do it that way, and all counties are not issuing orders,” Vail said.
But for now, Michigan is relying on those puzzle pieces for protection from the more contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 driving up cases.
Entering an era of local responsibility
Republicans have long advocated for local control and personal responsibility. In this post-vaccine landscape, they’re getting a measure of that.
“I am glad that after months and months of me, my colleagues, and public health experts telling the governor that the way to handle COVID was to inform, inspire, encourage and trust Michiganders to mitigate their own risk, she has listened,” Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, said in a statement.
He and Whitmer have been stark opposites in their approach to the pandemic. While she supported shutdowns, he supported opening businesses. As she put mask mandates in place, he bristled. As she’s promoted vaccines, he’s stayed away from getting one, instead relying on whatever natural immunity he got from fending off the virus.
But right now, they’re both favoring local direction and not statewide mandates.
At the very beginning of the pandemic, when so much uncertainty surrounded the virus, even some of the governor’s detractors gave her leeway. But people grew weary, and vaccines gave residents freedom, freedom they are reluctant to relinquish.
“Definitely prefer it this way,” John Gleason, 21 and a junior at Hillsdale College, said of the current approach to the pandemic. He was walking about a busy campus where last fall, classrooms were emptied by state order.
Vaccines are available and COVID-19 is less likely to be serious or life-threatening for people of his age group.
“So it makes sense that we don’t have prohibitions across the board against gatherings, and we don’t have mandates that apply to everyone,” said Gleason, who is studying philosophy at the private college, which does not mandate vaccines or masks.
He supports handling mitigation measures at the lowest possible level of government. Protect those who are vulnerable and let “everyone else live their life,” he said.
Most states are not enacting the types of measures Whitmer embraced last spring.
“Partly, that is science-driven, but it’s not just the science of epidemiology. We have to make some account for human behavior,” said Adrian Hemond, CEO and chairman of political consulting group Grassroots Midwest.
People willing to adopt mitigating behaviors without much resistance have largely done so already, he said.
“I don’t know that there’s anything but sort of marginal public health utility right now in imposing those mandates, given that people’s behaviors have kind of settled in,” Hemond said.
“And you have to ask yourself whether the juice is worth the squeeze.”
There are differences between now and earlier in the pandemic, said Vail, the health officer in Ingham County.
“One is that we’re aggressively trying to get people vaccinated. The public sentiment around that, you know, doesn’t need anything else to dissuade it. It is just a very careful evaluation of what exactly needs to be done versus where you can stand with recommendations.”
A statewide mandate would likely get more pushback than a local health department requirement, said Dr. Mark Hamed, medical director for health departments in Alcona, Iosco, Oscoda, Ogemaw, Tuscola, Huron, Sanilac and Lapeer counties in the thumb and northeast Michigan.
“Especially my counties, I think we probably would have more success if it was a locally issued order, especially in areas where (the governor) is not popular.”
He thinks an order has more weight when it comes from local health department, where officials know the community and area well. “It’s not a cookie-cutter approach. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.’”
He said his counties are “very sensitive to wanting more autonomy locally.”
Other public health leaders have different views, and the discussion centers on schools, where hundreds of children, largely unvaccinated, gather in close quarters.
Dr. Robert Van Howe, medical director for the Western Upper Peninsula and Dickinson-Iron District health departments, said he would like to see the state mandate masks in schools so there is consistent policy across districts.
When one county requires masks and a nearby county does not, people who oppose the policy will move their children from one county to the next, he said.
“And all of a sudden you have this shift of money and all those other kinds of things that go along with that. Having a blanket policy, you know, avoids all that between district differences.”
His departments considered but had not made masks mandatory.
This is also the case in Bay County.
“There’s a lot of difficulties. You can’t just implement something and think it’s going to be universally accepted and adopted. It is an emotional issue for sure. We’re cognizant of the inflammatory nature of the issue,” said Joel Strasz, public health director.
A statewide mandate would be a lot “less confusing,” he said.
School masks a test for local decisionmakers
Across the state, parents have packed school board meetings to debate whether students should be required to wear masks. In Grand Haven, a school board member resigned amid harassment over issues including masks. At Manchester High School, a group of students recently entered without masks in protest.
It’s a debate that’s more local than it was in 2020, when Whitmer required masks first for older students, then for all students in the state.
As school kicks off this year, students aren’t as well-protected as their adult counterparts. Statewide, 60.9% of the eligible population has had at least one dose of the vaccine. But that number drops to 46.1% of 16 to 19-year-olds, and 37.9% of 12 to 15-year-olds. No vaccine is yet authorized for kids under 12.
According to data collected by the New York Times, 16 states have enacted statewide mask mandates for schools, and one has mandated masks for some students. Five states have acted to ban school mask mandates. Michigan is among states leaving decisions up to locals.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends universal indoor masking for teachers, staff, students and visitors at schools regardless of vaccination status. The American Academy of Pediatrics says everyone older than 2 should wear a mask, and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services takes the CDC guidance one step further, recommending schools require masks for all.
Doctors across the state have said repeatedly said masking is best, to protect the wearer by reducing contact with viral particles, and those around them, by reducing spread of respiratory droplets.
There is this entire population of people who cannot be protected by immunization, Dr. Matthew Sims, director of infectious disease research at Southfield-based Beaumont Health, said last month. “And they’re going to make masking optional in a place where they can’t keep social distancing as well, and kids, as you know, are much more likely to hug and touch, get together in a much closer range. It’s just not safe.”
Bethany Deschaine, of Lansing, retired from the Lansing School District in December. She’s happy to see her grandson, a sixth-grader now, back in the classroom, and says he is good about masking up.
“I’ve been there, having to wear a mask all day, but I think it outweighs them being virtual,” she said.
To her, Whitmer’s actions, and current lack of mandate, strike the right balance between keeping people safe and letting people and businesses succeed.
“I think at the current moment, yes. I know she’s right on that border, do we need to mandate more do we need to keep where we’re at? I think she’s trying to keep at the minimal restrictions right now, but... her thumb is on the data,” Deschaine said.
Rep. Lori Stone, D-Warren, is a former teacher who represents portions of five school districts in Warren and Center Line in the state legislature. Two of the five school districts she represents require masks, and three made them optional, she said.
She supports decisions being made at a local level, and said the parents she’s hearing from largely support masks.
“Most of my district really would like to see masking, because they’re concerned that COVID spread will be a disruption, and possibly push learning back online virtually,” Stone said.
Alison Bernstein is an assistant professor of translational neuroscience at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine in Grand Rapids and mother to two school-aged children, 13 and almost 8.
She is part of Scimoms, a group of women science communicators who maintain a blog that presents easily digestible, evidence-based information on a range of topics, including COVID-19.
Bernstein said she hasn’t seen much from the governor lately.
She feels everyone is “playing politics with public health,” and she would like to see stronger leadership at all levels. She understands buy-in from local leaders is necessary for communities to be fully engaged.
“But there are schools around our state that are not following the CDC, the very clear guidance from the CDC and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. So, you know, we’re not talking about things that only affect the individuals making those decisions. It affects the community. It affects the kids who have no control over this.”
Kyle Hoffmann of Lansing, a restaurant worker, said the state’s mask mandate, which expired in June, probably should have remained.
He doesn’t see the numbers as too bad in Michigan, but the state of the virus is “really terrible” in other parts of the country. “I don’t know why you need to wait for things to get really really bad again before you start putting in preventative measures in place.”
Mandates are politically charged
In the spring of 2020, as Whitmer put mandates in place, some Michiganders bristled. Others took steps to protest the orders, defy them, sue over them, petition to curb Whitmer’s pandemic powers or attempt to recall Whitmer.
In other words, things turned politically charged almost immediately.
Though a court case stripped Whitmer of the pandemic powers she relied on initially, she retains the ability to put pandemic-related mandates out through the state health department, which she used last winter. Now, a fresh petition seeks to curb that power, as well.
Whitmer is up for reelection in 2022, and some say that changes the dynamics around handling COVID-19, too.
Disease prevention measures like masks have proven politically divisive.
A recent poll of 600 parents commissioned by the K-12 Alliance of Michigan found a near-even split: 49.5% of Michigan public school parents believe all students and staff should be required to wear masks in the classroom, while 45.3% were opposed to a mask mandate, and the poll had a 4% margin of error.
Andrea Bitely, senior director of strategy and client services at public relations firm Truscott Rossman, said that politically, “I just don’t think she’s got the capital to burn on this right now.”
In certain populations, Bitely said, mandates from Whitmer would still have a lot of sway. Schools, for instance, follow all sorts of requirements from the state. But, she said, “the average joe probably is pretty done with things.”
Hemond, of Grassroots Midwest, said it was natural for the governor to be counting politics among her considerations.
“As much as elected officials like to deny it, right, it’s a political job, right? Any elected job is a political job,” Hemond said.
More on MLive:
Michigan COVID data for Thursday, Sept. 9: Average cases down slightly, hospitalizations up
Poll shows Michigan parents divided on mask mandates in schools
Whitmer hears about student mental health in back-to-school roundtables
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