Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Whitmer is no longer a rising star. She is paying the price for playing politics. She did the bidding of the DNC & Biden in '20 and locked Michigan down with hopes of getting the VP nod. It blew up in their faces and they are leaving her holding the bag. She was a useful idiot to them and nothing more.
Curious why Michigan is a hot spot. Places with less restriction and growing populations are not faring as bad. I will have to pay attention as I am in the midst of planning a 2 week trip in July. Would have to have another 2 week trip home sullied by bureaucrats.
I wonder why this is too. We live in Michigan but only 20 minutes from Ohio which is much more open than Michigan, and nary a peep about that state. If the variants are to blame here, then why aren't they hitting bordering states, especially since so many people from Michigan drive to Ohio or Indiana to work and dine out in restaurants that still require masks but allow a greater capacity than 50%?
Seems like the variants would have seeped over the border by now, especially considering that a fairly large city, Toledo, sits on that border and has many people who commute from Michigan daily for work, shopping, dining out, medical appointments, and so forth, but there has been no reported surge of cases there. Are the variants all staying neatly north of the border or something?
I wonder why this is too. We live in Michigan but only 20 minutes from Ohio which is much more open than Michigan, and nary a peep about that state. If the variants are to blame here, then why aren't they hitting bordering states, especially since so many people from Michigan drive to Ohio or Indiana to work and dine out in restaurants that still require masks but allow a greater capacity than 50%?
Seems like the variants would have seeped over the border by now, especially considering that a fairly large city, Toledo, sits on that border and has many people who commute from Michigan daily for work, shopping, dining out, medical appointments, and so forth, but there has been no reported surge of cases there. Are the variants all staying neatly north of the border or something?
The surge is worse in the thumb area. It's moving closer to Ohio.
I hope that people in Ohio are getting their vaccinations in adequate numbers; no one wants to see the situation spread.
Why is there so little information about the current surge - like where it is being spread, where are the outbreaks?
Is its schools, workplaces, youth sports, certain ethnic communities?
I was down in TN earlier in the week and its absolutely non-existant there.
Florida the county I'm going to barely has any cases.
I cannot figure out WTF is going out with our governor's approach this time which is a complete 180 from the past 2 surges.
I really do think that the aggressive shut downs in the past just kicked the can down the road. She has pretty much said this herself. Although I suppose it's better to surge when vaccines are being administered and doctors and getting better and better at treating it.
It does *seem* to be peaking and starting to decline, so praying that this trend over the last week continues.
Ohio opened up earlier then us with bars and restaurants. Actually everything opened up earlier. Many states that opened earlier had their surge in cases. MI is having the surge now. Some experts stated which I repeated before on here it’s the cycle Covid goes through. When things open the surge happen and the cases will come down after awhile. FL when they first opened had 15000 cases a day and the past 7 weeks there 7 day average has been less then ours. At least the businesses in FL will survive
Whitmer even stated that we don’t have the immunity like other states.
How is it that 49 other states basically all with less restrictions 15 with no mask mandates are doing better then MI? For weeks we have been the highest and for 7 weeks we have been in the top 5
At this point if she’s going by data and science how could she even justify closing things when fully opened non masked states are doing better?
I also have a feeling since her approval rating has dropped that is contributing to her not closing things again.
Whitmer even stated that we don’t have the immunity like other states.
How is it that 49 other states basically all with less restrictions 15 with no mask mandates are doing better then MI?
The answer to your question is the bolded.
State locks down => people aren't exposed => people don't build immunity => state opens up => people are exposed => people get the virus => state locks down => ... That's why the lock downs never made any sense. We should be grateful vaccines were developed so fast or this insanity would have just continued indefinitely.
What should have been done instead is quarantine very sick / elderly people, and let everyone else go about their business. Then people who are likely to have significant problems from covid are protected, people who aren't likely to have significant problems from covid build immunity, and when a vaccine is available the vulnerable people can get vaccinated first. That was obvious from the beginning, as I pointed out at the time:
Keep the virus away from people with other significant health issues, because they're the ones that are vulnerable to serious consequences.
Instead, governors locked their states down and delayed the inevitable. Now we're at the inevitable, and the states that locked down the hardest are going to have the biggest problems as people who spent the last year staring at the inside walls of their homes venture out for the first time and inevitably get exposed to covid.
The response to covid from Governor Whitmer, and most other governors, would have been appropriate if covid affected the healthy as well as the very ill. But it doesn't, and that was crystal clear from the data out of Italy before the first lock down was announced in the US. The response we got was just completely out of proportion to the problem we actually faced.
This has been discussed to death in a parallel thread, but worth mentioning here. All the numbers are 7-day averages; data is from NYT and Statista.
Cases:
The "open" states (namely, Florida and Texas, as those are the two that get brought up the most) have had two surges already.
Both were in July and January. Florida's peaks topped out at 14K and 19K new cases/day, respectively; Texas topped out at 15K and 30K and both second peaks were LONG, from November until February. It looks like they're starting to inch up again, btw. Not much, but the trend since mid-March has been steadily up, not down.
Michigan's first peak didn't come until November and ended in late January (so, similar in length to the second peaks in Florida/Texas). At its worst, we were at around 8K/day, which is roughly in line with FL and TX, considering the relative size of the states (Florida's population is roughly 2x ours, Texas's is 3x).
Overall, our per-capita case rate is 8,423. Texas's is 9,785 and Florida's is 9,940.
Deaths:
Florida has had two peaks, in August (185/day) and January (180/day). They also had a slight bump in March (80/day) and held pretty steadily at around 110/day in September-October.
Texas has also had two peaks, in August at around 350/day and in January at just about 500/day.
Our first death wave hit right as the pandemic did, in April, when we averaged around 150/day. The second peak was in December/January, 130/day. It looks like we're on a slight upturn right now, as well (around 50/day). This could be explained by the deadlier UK variant and potentially the nursing homes issue. Otherwise, we did marginally better than Florida and a LOT better than Texas. But our peaks were pretty gnarly, so on average we still top those two states on per capita deaths overall. Florida is at 159, Texas is at 170, we are at 177.
Testing:
Florida: 1.04 tests/person
Texas: .68 tests/person (I think this number speaks for itself)
Michigan: 1.06 tests/person
So, yes, by shutting down as we did, Michigan has "delayed the inevitable", as jdhpa has said. But in doing so we managed to have our second peak now, when vaccines are at least somewhat available. The downside to that, of course, is Covid fatigue, which is another part of the reason cases are spiking now, especially in the thumb where some of the most shutdown-resistant population in the state seems to live.
One more point: what many forget is that Florida and Texas are quite likely major Covid exporters. These stats are going to be hard to find, but it's difficult to deny that both states are major party destinations. Michigan is not. The cases people picked up on vacation in Texas and Florida have been disseminated throughout the other 48 states (well, 46, really). Not the case in MI. A slight counter to this point is that both Florida and Texas are outdoor states on account of their year-round warm climates, but while this might drive case rates down for their residents who are able to congregate more outdoors, when people come to drink and party, they typically don't observe social distancing measures.
Lastly, if you truly want to look at "open states", just look at the Dakotas. Over 13K cases/100K people - runaway leaders in the country. Pretty high on the death/100K list, as well (197 North, 220 South).
And a question. Making fun of Whitmer for shutting down paint stores is fun and all, but does anyone have access to actual economic statistics that compare states that shut down early vs. the ones that didn't? I know that by virtue of us living in MI, we all know someone who's lost a business or a job, but as tragic as that is, it's anecdotal evidence, at best.
Last edited by highlanderfil; 04-15-2021 at 07:13 PM..
The response to covid from Governor Whitmer, and most other governors, would have been appropriate if covid affected the healthy as well as the very ill. But it doesn't
Depends on how you look at it. No, it quite likely won't kill you if you're younger. But long Covid, which, by some estimates affects around a third of those who were infected, no matter how mildly, is a thing missing from many statistics.
I cannot figure out WTF is going out with our governor's approach this time which is a complete 180 from the past 2 surges.
It's quite simple, actually. She's in a no-win situation. If she doesn't lock down and the vaccines don't arrive in time and in numbers, she is going to be blamed for not doing enough. If she does lock down...well, just read this thread.
The fact is for 7 weeks now MI has done worse than 45 to 49 other states. For overall Covid deaths we are higher than 31 states. Even if the other states have done only marginally better there economy is functioning and people were able to live a more normal life. Mentally for many kids and adults this is going to be long lasting. I know depression and suicide rates especially have greatly increased
The only thing the delay in opening did was for businesses to not be able to survive and for people financially to be impacted. The states like FL and even Ohio in the upcoming months and year will most likely be in a better place financially. We won’t see the true financial impact for awhile since the government has been helping.
Jdhpa I agree that the elderly and sick should of just been quarantined. I said that to my senior mom early on she wasn’t thrilled with that idea. I wanted to grocery shop for her and drop it outside her home but she wouldn’t let me. I don’t know how they would of enforced it but 80 percent of deaths were from that group of people
The past few months if anything FL should of had higher numbers. There population increases with snowbirds. I lived in South FL and in my sub which had 6000 people 50 percent were there for around 4 months. Every state that is cold has people that travel in the winter. Just as many people in Ohio probably travel during the winter as MI. So why isn’t Ohio having the increased numbers like MI?
I don’t have statistics on the financial impact us being shut down vs the states that weren’t but common sense says if a business is not open they can’t make money. So when our dine in restaurant and bars were closed, gyms, movies etc for 6 months no income compared to the states that were open. I understand some assistance was given but I don’t think in many cases it was enough. For bars for example still having to close at 11 is a huge financial loss. Even now many restaurants don’t seem busy. The financial loss for many places will continue even after Covid
I almost feel even Whitmer thinks her handling of this was not good. Prior to the last 2 news briefing she had not had one in 20 days. It’s like she didn’t want to answer why MI is doing so poorly compared to other states when she has had such strict restrictions.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
