State Health Department Calls On Athletes To Enter Four-Week Bubble

Only limited contact with others for two weeks before and after an event

By Tom Gantert | January 7, 2021

Individuals who participate in organized sports are directed to “completely avoid” all other gatherings for a two-week period, both before and after a sporting event, according to an Interim Guidance document released by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. On its face, this would mean no doctor visits, grocery shopping or attending church.

But the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services disputes that interpretation.

“Under our guidance, athletes should not have social contact or gather in groups with others outside of their household or team, except for a few limited circumstances,” said Lynn Sutfin, spokeswoman for the department. “They may attend school or work, receive medical care, get a haircut, or be incidentally gathered to receive services, such as grocery shopping or picking up takeout food. They should not attend any organized gatherings (which are not permitted indoors currently) and should not be gathered in entertainment venues like a movie theater or bowling alley.”

Sutfin added, “It is also important to note that this guidance applies to athletes who are choosing to continue competition while athletics are otherwise suspended.”

Dated Jan. 4, the document on the department’s website states: “During the two weeks before and after events, other than to attend in-person school, athletes should have no social contact outside of teammates, team staff/coaches, or their households. Athletes should comply with all MDHHS gathering orders. They must completely avoid participation in non-team gatherings, and this should be strictly enforced by team staff and coaches.”

The state has defined a “gathering” as “any occurrence, either indoor or outdoor, where two or more persons from more than one household are present in a shared space.”

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.

Restaurant In Trouble For Letting A Single Family Use A 100-Person Room

The law’s the law, says state health department

By Dawson Bell | January 6, 2021

Flint-area restaurateur Dave Gillie says he has done his best to comply with the large number of state regulations imposed under the auspices of the COVID-19 public health emergency, which include cleaning, masking, screening and distancing requirements.

“I followed the law meticulously,” said the owner of Gillie’s Coney Island in Mt. Morris.

But Gillie says he finds himself at odds with local health inspectors nonetheless. That’s because of a policy under which he permits solitary diners, or a handful of people from the same household, to use his otherwise mostly empty dining room to consume the hot dogs they purchase from him.

Gillie said the plain language of the “Gatherings and Face Mask Order” imposed by state Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon permits it. Under the order, which ostensibly bans indoor dining until Jan. 15, a single diner or a household group of fewer than six is not considered a “gathering.”

Gillie said the indoor option has been used infrequently, mostly by elderly patrons who don’t want to eat in their vehicles or alone at home. And the risk posed by a single, occupied table in a dining room that was designed to seat up to 110, and is also open to those picking up orders or needing to use the restroom, is virtually nil. But Genesee County health officials believe otherwise, Gillie said.

The restaurant owner got a call from an inspector in the week before Christmas, “demanding I stop this practice,” he says.

Gillie spoke to a supervisor who claimed she has received numerous complaints, and told him she would “shut me down and issue violations.” He says it is unlikely that the department received many complaints; the attention was more likely attributable to a Facebook post he made about the policy, he said.

No citations have been issued.

Neither the supervisor nor the head of the county’s environmental health division responded to requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, however, did say, “Food service establishments are not allowed to permit indoor dining, regardless of table configuration or spacing,” except under limited exceptions, such as for custodial settings, medical facilities and shelters.

Gillie says his modest accommodation for those wishing to dine indoors is not motivated by personal gain. Unlike many other food service establishments, Gillie’s Coney Island has not been decimated by COVID restrictions. It has, he says, always relied heavily on take-out orders, which have grown since state-ordered shutdowns were enacted. The Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association filed suit to block the most recent shutdown order, which it said lacked “clear and specific data” to justify an action which was causing catastrophic harm to the industry and thousands of employees who depend on it. A federal judge denied the association’s request for a restraining order.