The Health Department of Northwest Michigan issued a school mask mandate on Aug. 27.

The Health Department of Northwest Michigan serves Antrim, Charlevoix, Emmet and Otsego counties. The state of Michigan's Traverse City region that the Health Department of Northwest Michigan is included has 17 northern Michigan counties. 

The Aug. 27 order states, “In addition, local hospital authorities have reported a dangerous strain on capacity including limited ICU beds, extremely long wait times in Emergency Departments, resulting in the need to intermittently divert patients to hospitals out of the area which also puts strain on local EMS capacity.”

An average of 1.6% of emergency room visits in that state of Michigan region were patients with COVID symptoms over the seven days from Aug. 21 to 27, according to the state of Michigan.

In the state's Traverse City region, 122 of the 174 ICU beds were occupied (70%), but many were not COVID cases. There were 57 confirmed adult COVID hospitalizations as of Aug. 30 but no confirmed child COVID hospitalizations, according to state-released survey of local hospitals.

The McLaren Northern Michigan hospital in Petoskey had nine patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and 49% bed occupancy. Munson Healthcare Charlevoix hospital had three patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and 64% bed occupancy.

The Munson Healthcare system is the largest hospital provider in the state's Traverse City region. Its five hospitals there had a combined 41 patients hospitalized with COVID. The five hospitals bed occupancy rate as of Aug. 30 was 59% (Cadillac), 64% (Charlevoix), 51% (Grayling), 31% (Manistee) and 72% (Traverse City).

Editor's note: This story was altered to clarify the counties impacted by the Health Department of Northwest Michigan school mask mandate.

A member of the Huron-Clinton Metroparks board was denied another term by the Livingston County Board of Commissioners in a 5-4 vote. At least one Livingston county commissioner who opposed Steven Williams says it was because Williams supported the parks system’s initiative to use taxpayer dollars to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Commissioner Wes Nakagiri says he voted against Steven Williams’ appointment at an Aug. 23 meeting. The reason, he said, was that Williams voted to allocate $125,000 to hire guest speakers that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. Williams, he added, also supported giving $6 million in taxpayer funds to the Detroit Conservancy over the next seven years for the same purpose.

Nakagiri said, “I voted against his reappointment due to his support for CRT [Critical Race Theory] and social justice. Other commissioners were equally troubled by the incumbent’s vote to give $6 million taxpayer dollars to a private entity as a means of showing more support for social justice. The incumbent likely would have been reappointed had he not voted in favor of these woke causes.”

The park system has so far paid between $500 and $7,500 for two guest speakers in its DEI Speaker Series. One of the speakers, Heather McGhee, is an author and former president of the left-leaning think tank Demos.

In a YouTube video, McGhee discussed her book “The Sum of Us” with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts. McGhee said that in the past, white people opposed liberating people of color because doing so would come at their expense; and that they used stolen land, stolen labor, and stolen people.

She added, “And it’s just been sort of rehashed and reinvigorated generation after generation by those same forces; obviously, today it is the core of the narrative of the right-wing media and infrastructure and what is the world view of what Donald Trump sees everything.”

McGhee also believes unions lost their power and support among white people when people of color wanted to be included.

The Metroparks described another speaker, Elizabeth Perry, an assistant professor in the Michigan State University College of Agriculture, as someone who would discuss climate change and its “equity considerations.”

Williams did not respond to a request for comment.