Epidemiologists To Michigan Supreme Court: Lock Down State Until Vaccine

A group of doctors, lawyers and academics calling itself Michigan Epidemiologists are advocating that the state remain in a state of emergency until a vaccine for the novel coronavirus is found.

And that could take as long as four years or more, according to one national public policy think tank.

The group has filed a friend of the court brief defending Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s decision to take unilateral emergency powers during the epidemic. The Michigan Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the case at a Sept. 2 hearing.

Paula Lantz, a health policy professor and associate dean for academic affairs at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, is the lead writer of the amicus brief.

“COVID 19 will continue to present a health emergency to the state of Michigan until a vaccine is developed and delivered to the vast majority of people of all ages,” the brief states.

But the Goodman Institute for Public Policy, a Texas-based organization, has stated that the quickest a vaccine has ever been produced in the U.S. was four years.

“Don’t rely on a vaccine; it’s still a long way off. The fastest vaccine development in history was four years for Merck’s MumpsVax in the 1960s. Even if a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 could be developed in half that time, we are still looking at the summer of 2022 before the vaccine would be developed, approved, manufactured, and distributed for widespread use,” the Goodman Institute wrote.