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CoViD-19: The light at the end of the tunnel

 On Friday the 14th of May, 2021, the State Of Michigan issued the following statement:

Dear Friend,

For more than a year, we’ve been following the best data and science to slow the spread of COVID-19 and save lives. The vast majority of us have trusted the scientists and experts to keep us safe during the pandemic, and it has worked. With millions of Michiganders fully vaccinated, we can now safely and confidently take the next step to get back to normal.

Today I announced the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) is updating the Gatherings and Mask Order to align with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest guidance on face coverings.

On Thursday, the CDC released updated guidance recommending “fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.” 

Under the updated MDHHS Gatherings and Mask Order:

  • Michiganders who are outdoors will no longer need to wear a mask regardless of vaccination status.

  • While indoors, fully vaccinated Michiganders (meaning those who completed their final dose of a safe and effective vaccine at least 14 days ago) will no longer need to wear a mask, but residents who are not yet fully vaccinated must continue to wear a mask or face covering to protect themselves and others.

  • After July 1, the broad indoor mask mandate will expire. 

The new order, which will be publicly available on the Michigan Coronavirus website once released, will take effect tomorrow May 15 at 9AM. 

The message is clear: vaccines work to protect you and your loved ones. If you have not yet received your vaccine, now is the time to sign up, and until you are vaccinated it is important to continue to mask up to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.

This pandemic has been one of the toughest challenges of our lifetimes, but we came together as a state to persevere. We have all been working incredibly hard toward getting back to some sense of normalcy, and today's news makes all of that work worthwhile.

Sincerely,

Governor Whitmer

Gretchen Whitmer
Governor


On the heels of President Biden's vaccination initiative, and the CDC issuing a similar statement earlier on Friday, we've finally got a tangible, trackable road map out of this.  Per the State's press release, if we don't let up, we'll be allowed to be "back to normal" by July 4...a symbolic date, of course, being Independence Day here in the US. 

This whole thing has sucked - a lot of local history topics that I'd planned on writing took a backseat to covering the local history that was happening right the fuck now, in front of our eyes.  I'm disappointed that one specific political party actively hindered our disease response, first by defunding our federal pandemic preparation, then by denying that CoViD was even an issue, then finally by stripping pandemic powers from our governor.  I'm disappointed that measures to limit the spread of the virus, like masks, were heavily politicized.

But, in the effort of showcasing our local situation, I grabbed these numbers (on 5/16/2021) from the Ottawa County Health Department website:
32,171 total cases in Ottawa County
980 hospitalizations
399 total deaths
28,328 recoveries; 26,342 confirmed recoveries and 1,986 probable recoveries.
77 new cases per day, over the past 7 days

And, to wrap, I'd like to point out one of the most troublesome Karen Facebook conspiracy theories (I've heard this from a lot of essential-oil swilling Sarah Palin-esque Hockey Moms or Mama Bears):  That they're reporting all deaths as CoViD deaths to make it look worse.  Ottawa County has reported 0 deaths from CoVid on many days since 3/15/2020...if all deaths were being reported as CoViD deaths, and they're reporting 0 deaths from CoViD, that means that nobody died that day in a county the size of Ottawa County, which is highly improbable.  Want proof?  Here's an obituary of a lady from Zeeland, who passed away on May 10, 2021.  In the Ottawa County Health Department link above, they're reporting 0 CoViD deaths on May 10.  Ya dig?

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