Michiganders not staying put
Rising number of cases may mean a clampdown in fall, expert says
Nisa Khan
Michigan was on the move during the Fourth of July weekend.
Parts of western Michigan, northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula have seen more people traveling across county borders than their southeastern counterparts as COVID-19 cases have been rising again in the state.
Cass County in western Michigan continues to have the highest rate of movement in the state. Cass County is where hundreds gathered Sunday at a Diamond Land Sandbar party, a popular spot for summer. Many people were seen crowded together, forgoing masks and social distancing.
An analysis of mobility flow data gathered by Cuebiq, a measurement firm that tracks anonymized location data of people using cellphone GPS, shows that Cass County had a mobility rate of 66%, meaning 66% of cellphones entered or left the county that weekend — presumably in someone’s purse or pocket. Many visitors (46%) came from Cass’s surrounding counties, St. Joseph and Berrien. Higher rates mean more movement.
Despite having the highest mobility rate in
the state, Cass is still moving a little less than before the pandemic hit. In February, Cass’s mobility rate was 69%.
Howard Markel, director of the University of Michigan’s Center for the History of Medicine and one of the originators of the term “flattening the curve,” says it is not surprising to see cellphone data mirror epidemiological case data, “particularly as the summer progresses and Fourth of July happens.”
“And some of them are bringing the infection with them because germs travel,” Markel said.
Other numbers
Clinton County, which is in the Lansing metropolitan area, is tied at 66% as well.
Another county closely following the highest is Crawford. Crawford, which is in northern Michigan, is at 65%.
Five counties are at 64%, including Arenac County, which is in mid-Michigan and next to Saginaw Bay. Arenac sees people from neighboring counties as well as southeast Michigan visitors from Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb.
In some areas of the state, Michiganders are now traveling as much or more than before the pandemic, especially in the Upper Peninsula. Houghton County is above its pre-pandemic levels (12 percentage points above February). Grand Traverse County, a popular vacation spot, is up by 8 percentage points.
A late June Detroit Free Press analysis of Cuebiq’s data found Michigan was doing better than more states at staying still. Michigan’s usual flow was around 50% but, because of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “stay-at-home” order, it dropped to 27%-28% for the four-week period starting March 23, which was the day the order was announced.
However, while Michigan was previously thought to have been on track to contain the virus, the state has seen rising case numbers since June 15. Michigan’s seven-day moving average of new COVID-19 confirmed cases was 444 on Wednesday, which is still down from its peak of 1,622 on April 7 but higher than June 15’s 152 cases.
“Michigan was really doing a fantastic job under Governor Whitmer and she was doing her level best,” Markel says, explaining limiting places of close contact like barbershops made a positive difference. “You can almost predict which states are doing better than others because it’s been politicized . ... The public health laws are quite clear. They’ve been on the books forever. The government can, in a type of contagious crisis, clamp down. Because we haven’t done this in over 100 years, because we’ve had such success with antibiotics and vaccines and other things, no one is used to that kind of public health involvement.”
about
Michigan’s movement:
Whitmer has faced criticism from Michigan Republicans for her response to the coronavirus. They say she has gone beyond her gubernatorial power in extending Michigan’s “stayat-home” orders. A judge threw out a lawsuit filed by Republican lawmakers against Whitmer in mid-May, stating she did have the right to limit commerce under the Emergency Powers of Governor Act of 1945. There is now a circulating petition to repeal the aforementioned law in order to restrict the governor’s powers.
“It makes all that previous effort kind of all for naught, in a way,” Markel says. “The thing about social distancing and flattening the curve is it only buys you time. It doesn’t cure you. It doesn’t make you immune. Basically, you’re hiding from the virus. And as soon as we’ve all come out of hiding, guess what happened? The curve went back up again.”
Markel points to China and Germany as countries that have successfully contained the spread through quarantining and social distancing. He said these governments also have been helping their citizens better financially.
“It’s incredibly disruptive socially, economically. There’s a lot of people who are really hurting because of it,” he said. “Other European countries have done a much better job because you can’t expect citizens to do these really onerous, disruptive things if they have to choose between paying their rent or doing the socially responsible thing.
“The government needs to do a far better job of cutting them some kind of regular unemployment check,” he adds. “And we have to take care of those people. That has to be part of our public health policy.”
Markel was part of a team that closely studied the 1918-19 influenza pandemic, which has gone on to shape both the World Health Organization’s and federal governments’ pandemic policies around the world. He said the influenza pandemic is a frequently used example because it was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, and while the country was a very different place then, it is a model for a sickness that didn’t have a cure.
“They were social distancing,” he said, explaining how 100 years ago, schools, restaurants and bars were closed. “(All they had) were social distancing methods or isolation or quarantining, they didn’t have any treatments. And that’s kind of like what we have today. We do have modern hospitals and intensive care units for people who get really sick. But we don’t have antivirals and we don’t have vaccines yet. Hopefully, modern medicine, which is quite incredible, will emerge with such solutions.”
One county where Michiganders are staying put is Wayne, home to Detroit. During the Fourth of July weekend, Wayne County had one of the lowest mobility rates in the country at 20%, similar to other large counties deeply devastated by the pandemic like Los Angeles County in California. In January, Wayne’s mobility flow was about 45%. The second-lowest rate in Michigan was in one of Wayne’s bordering counties, St. Clair, at 23%.
While Wayne County has one of the lowest mobility rates, Markel pointed out many in Detroit face socioeconomic and health disparities that make them vulnerable to coronavirus. Detroiters are also living in much tighter spaces than suburbanites are, which gives them more opportunity to spread the virus.
While Michigan is slightly below the national average, which is 48%, its total mobility rate has risen in the past two weeks. Michigan went from 44% to 46% as the state starts to reopen.
Markel says governors will be in a difficult position if the numbers of cases and deaths rise in the coming weeks.
“If it gets worse again. If we are seeing the numbers of cases that we were seeing a few months ago, and we’re pretty close to them, they will have a hard decision to make in terms of again going back to that March (“stay-athome” order). I think we probably will by the fall. I really do.”