When Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a statewide stay-at-home executive order on March 23, Michigan was experiencing a daily rate of 91.9 new COVID-19 cases per million residents (using a rolling seven-day average).
On Nov. 2, Michigan was averaging 253.5 new cases per million, nearly three times the rate that triggered the original order.
Robert Gordon, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, was asked why he hasn’t issued an order to implement another stay-at-home order.
“We know so much more now than we did in March,” Gordon said, according to Bridge Magazine. “We know about the power of masks and that enables people to engage in a range of activities that weren’t possible then. So, I do think we are better positioned by the science and by the experience to live more fully in a way that we couldn’t in March.”
Gordon’s logic talks about “the power of masks” when combating the coronavirus.
But the mask mandate has been in effect since Oct. 5, just two days after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Whitmer’s pandemic-related executive orders were unlawful and unconstitutional.
In the weeks since Gordon imposed a mask mandate on Oct. 5, new cases of COVID-19 have increased from 106.4 per million to 267 per million, as of Nov. 1.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.