On Wednesday, Michigan’s Children, a Lansing-based nonprofit advocating for children and families, urged all of the state’s 891 school boards to “do their job and act to ensure school safety through effective mask-wearing by students and staff” to ensure a safe start to the 2021-22 school year.
COVID-19
A GOP bill to preemptively prohibit mandatory employee vaccinations saw the light of day Thursday, in a House committee hearing saturated with COVID-19 conspiracy theories and anti-vaxxer rhetoric
Michigan is experiencing a COVID-19 surge comparable to spring 2020 based on current trends, said Sarah Lyon-Callo, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) director of the Bureau of Epidemiology and Population Health. Although the number of vaccinated Michiganders is slowly growing, the increase in all COVID-19 metrics is growing much faster.
Top U.S. health officials announced a plan Wednesday to begin offering COVID-19 booster shots to Americans starting Sept. 20, with the scheduling of the additional shot to be based on when a person was fully vaccinated. The new round of jabs will be extended to those who received the two-dose vaccine from either Pfizer or Moderna, and can be taken eight months after an individual’s second dose.
Doug and Alek are joined by Michigan Advance Editor-in-Chief Susan J. Demas to discuss her recent column about the current state of affairs as it pertains to the COVID-19 pandemic, journalistic niceties, the shift in the way journalists operate amid an ultra polarized political climate, access journalism, and the highs and lows of mountain climbing (see what we did there?)
In just over 17 months COVID-19 has infected 922,687 Michiganders in total. The state hit the grim milestone of 20,000 COVID-19 deaths on Friday, with the state reporting Monday that 20,030 total residents have now died.
The COVID-19 patients filling Michigan’s hospitals are mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. They hail from throughout the state, from the tip of the Upper Peninsula to the Ohio and Indiana borders; they live in city apartments and old farm houses on land dotted by cornstalks. They are younger than many of the COVID-19 patients in the past — parents with small children, recent graduates, people heading into their first-ever jobs. And, overwhelmingly, they are unvaccinated.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) reported Wednesday that a total of 916,006 Michiganders have tested positive for COVID-19 and 19,982 have died from the virus — an additional 2,786 cases and 24 deaths since Monday.
After a hiatus in 2020, the Three Rivers Area Faith Community (TRAFC) is once again hosting the Back to School Celebration, an event at which school age children accompanied by an adult caregiver receive a free backpack filled with school supplies.
Michigan Advance’s Susan J. Demas holds nothing back in this scathing op-ed about the current state of affairs in America as it pertains to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Branch Hillsdale St. Joseph Community Health Agency (BHSJ) will recommend universal masking for the upcoming K-12 school year, according to Health Officer Rebecca Burns.
The COVID-19 transmission rates in 32 Michigan counties — 21 more than last week — are considered “high” or “substantial,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). St. Joseph County is among the areas with “substantial” transmission rates.
The nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency (SFA) has calculated that, given the state’s current trajectory, it will take until mid-November for Michigan to reach the desired 70% vaccinated threshold to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Charles Morris writes, “Our faith teaches us to look out for one another to address the crises before us, and as our nation continues to recover, we must now turn our attention to the climate crisis and environmental justice. A bold investment in clean energy infrastructure currently being discussed in Washington would do just that. This is an opportunity to invest in a clean energy future while addressing the injustices of the past.”
Housing policy experts have warned that millions of Americans are still struggling to pay their rent, and that the end of that legal protection likely will lead to a surge in eviction filings across the country.
Federal health officials on Tuesday urged Americans in areas of the country with the highest surges in COVID-19 infections to once again wear masks when they are in public, indoor settings — even if they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
As college campuses across Michigan are less than a month away from opening up to students for the fall semester, the state reports only 39.8% of residents 20 to 29 years old have been inoculated with at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Those aged 16 to 19 have a slightly higher rate of 40.3%.
This week, just three states with lower vaccination rates — Florida, Texas and Missouri — accounted for 40% of all cases nationwide. One in five cases occurred in Florida alone.