LANSING, Mich. — Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield sent the governor another letter on Saturday, April 18 pushing for her to relax the latest stay at home order. Chatfield, who has been a vocal critic of the order in recent weeks, suggests three changes that the state could implement "before it's too late."
Primarily, Chatfield cites economic concerns and wanting to get people back to work. More than 1 million Michigan residents have filed for unemployment since the crisis started about a month ago.
"We all know it will take far longer to put hard-working Michiganders back to work than it took for them to be laid off, which is why the people who have been affected by this deserve immediate answers," Chatfield said.
The state's first cases were reported on March 10, and by March 16, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had ordered all bars and restaurants to close to in-person diners. Then on March 24, a stay at home order was enacted, shuttering businesses across the state. After an extension, it is set to be lifted on May 1.
Chatfield acknowledges in his letter that this pandemic is an unprecedented challenge for the legislature and that he appreciates Whitmer's service to the state. But he made these suggestions for the governor to adapt her order.
- Adopt federal guidance for essential services, which would allow certain industries to reopen, like construction, realtors and landscapers.
- Restructure the order from essential vs. non-essential to safe vs. unsafe activities. This, Chatfield contends, would allow people to go to work if they can do their job safely.
- Adopt a regional data-driven approach to future stay at home restrictions. Chatfield said state health officials should assess the risk of reopening certain regions earlier than others, by looking at their health care capacity and current threat of COVID-19.
"Although well-intentioned, the current one-size-fits-all approach to battling this pandemic is already outdated and falling further behind every day," Chatfield said.
Friday, Whitmer said she hopes to relax certain restrictions by May 1, but she emphasized that reopening the state will be done cautiously.
"We're not there yet," Whitmer said. "The rate of infection remains high, especially in certain parts of our state. And the threat of a second spike that overloads our hospitals is still very real if we don't get this right."
The governor teased a plan to reboot the workforce that will be explained late next week that will likely start by reopening "low risk sectors." This includes factors like whether workers interact with the public, whether workers are inside or outside, whether workers are in close proximity to each other and if they share tools, Whitmer explained.
It's also possible, depending on the data, that certain regions that are not as hard hit could open earlier. All of these elements will contribute to the state's assessment on reopening Michigan.
According to a Pew Research Poll released this week, 66% of Americans are more concerned about state governments lifting restrictions too quickly than keeping them in place too long.
Michigan has been one of the states hit the hardest by coronavirus, with more than 30,000 cases and a death toll surpassing 2,000.
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