Whitmer praised at the time of lockdown orders

Michiganders are marking a grim anniversary this March 18. Five years ago, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer locked down the state in response to the COVID-19 emergency, shuttering most of the economy in a shock from which Michigan businesses have yet to recover.

Whitmer issued nearly 200 executive orders, many of them baffling. The governor deemed liquor stores, casinos, and cannabis dispensaries essential — allowing them to remain open — but ordered greenhouses to close.

Yet at the time, Whitmer was considered one of the most trusted sources of information about COVID-19.

“She has repeatedly emphasized that she is guided by science,”said Marianne Udow-Phillips, founding executive director of the Center for Health and Research Transformation, a nonprofit health policy center at the University of Michigan, as quoted by MLive.

A report from the center concluded, “People trust health care providers, public health officials, and Governor Whitmer more than many other sources when it comes to communicating important messages about COVID-19.”

Half a decade later, positive reviews like this one are difficult to square with the state's performance during and after the lockdown period. Whitmer ordered some businesses to stay open while ordering other businesses to close. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy created cartoons to illustrate the contradictions within her orders.

Early in the pandemic, the governor closed ice rinks but allowed casinos to stay open.

She allowed professional bowling but not recreational leagues.

Residents could go to the dentist but not get a haircut.

Michiganders were permitted to wash their cars at an automatic car wash but not get their cars washed by hand at a car wash.

Landscapers could work, but not roofers or construction workers.

Attorney General Dana Nessel said people could walk on golf courses but were not allowed to bring balls or golf bags.

If residents wanted to get fresh air, they could kayak or canoe but were not allowed to use motorized boats, according to a post from the Michigan United Conservation Clubs.

The Department of Natural Resources said that people were congregating at boat launches, so the officials shut them down.

The ban on some forms of boating lasted just 15 days, ending three days after the conservation clubs filed a lawsuit, according to the Lansing State Journal.

“Part of what made it difficult to simply trust the science, as the Whitmer administration repeatedly told us to do, was that the many of the mandates supposedly based on this science were illogical on their face,” Michael Van Beek, director of research at the Mackinac Center, told Michigan Capitol Confidential. It became increasingly clear, Van Beek added, that the governor was making the rules up as she went.

CapCon reported in August 2022 that a federal judge tried and failed to obtain the science that Whitmer said she used to back up her orders. During the legal challenge to the governor’s order covering gyms, the judge presiding wrote of state officials:

“Defendants emphasized the low bar: All that needed to be presented was a reasonably conceivable set of facts that connected the continued closure to protecting the public health. But when asked, even (their) counsel was unable to state a rational basis to support the position that indoor gyms must still be closed. Defendants merely reiterated that a threat of transmission exists at indoor gyms, and the threat of transmission must be minimized.”

The governor’s office did not respond to CapCon's emailed request for comment.