LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says she supports President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for employers. Her comments came Wednesday in a roundtable with reporters.
That followed Attorney General Dana Nessel saying earlier in the week that she would support a defense of the mandate.
Whitmer acknowledged that some comments she made earlier this month during a visit to Montcalm County expressing her concerns about the mandate were misunderstood.
She said she was trying to address the problem of possibly losing state employees, but she still supports the mandate.
13 ON YOUR SIDE reached out to the governor's office and received this statement:
“Since the safe and effective vaccines became widely available, Governor Whitmer has been working to support the goal of increasing our state’s vaccination numbers, so that we can protect more Michiganders and finally end this pandemic. While our approach in Michigan has not included any sort of mandate or restriction, the courts have allowed the federal government’s vaccine rule to move forward, which means employers across the country, including the state government in Michigan, will need to draft a plan to keep employees safe at work. As an employer of nearly 50,000 State of Michigan employees, the governor has been a sympathetic partner to businesses while we try to understand how the federal vaccine rule will work for our employees. To help alleviate some of that stress, the governor signed into law, and will be disbursing, $500 million in funding to help businesses throughout the state weather the pandemic as we all work to figure out the logistics and implementation process to be in compliance with the federal government’s new rule.”
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