Michigan cases out of control

Nowhere in the U.S. is the pandemic more out of control than in Michigan.

Outbreaks are ripping through workplaces, restaurants, churches and weddings. Hospitals are overwhelmed with patients. Michigan is home to nine of the 10 metro areas with the country’s highest recent case rates.

During previous surges in Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shut down businesses and schools as she saw fit — over the din of both praise and protests. But this time, Whitmer has stopped far short of the sweeping shutdowns.

“Policy change alone won’t change the tide,” Whitmer said on Friday, as she asked the public to take a two-week break from indoor dining, in-person high school and youth sports. “We need everyone to step up and to take personal responsibility here.”

Whitmer’s new position reflects the shifting politics of the pandemic, shaped more by growing public impatience with restrictions and the hope offered by vaccines than by any reassessment among public health authorities.

Her approach, calling for individual responsibility over statewide restrictions, might have been lifted from the playbook of a Republican. But even many Democrats in Michigan seem to concur that the time for shutting things down might have passed.

Mayor Sheldon Neeley of Flint said he was worried about the steep rise in new cases but for now did not favor sweeping restrictions from Whitmer.

Still, a growing number of doctors and public health officials are calling on Whitmer to take much more aggressive action as cases worsen by the day.