Governor’s High Threshold Suggests Reopening Will Be A Long Time Coming

The standard Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her administration have suggested for determining when the number of COVID-19 cases has become low enough to lift restrictions has not been met since March 8, the first day shown on a state epidemic website.

Joneigh Khaldun, chief medical executive for the state of Michigan, stated Aug. 5 officials would like the state to be under 10 cases per million residents.

From March 8 through Aug. 3 — the dates for which the state dashboard provides a seven-day rolling average — there has only been one day Michigan has been under that threshold. It was the first day the state tracked cases - March 8.

On that day, the state had 7.3 cases per million residents.

The rate was 124.2 per million on April 1. Since that date, the lowest the state has been at was 15.5, on June 10.