Khaldun: At Current Rate, Mich. Could See 100 COVID-19 Deaths Daily By Christmas

By Laina G. Stebbins, Michigan Advance

After praising Michiganders’ historic voter turnout and congratulating the winners of Tuesday’s election, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer turned to the worsening threat of uncontrolled virus spread in the state during a virtual press conference Thursday.

“With the election behind us, now is the time for us to find common ground and come together. … We have a common enemy, and that is COVID-19,” Whitmer said.

Since her executive orders on COVID-19 were struck down by the Michigan Supreme Court’s GOP majority in October, both daily reported cases and hospitalization numbers in the state have consistently been on the rise.

Wednesday marked the first time Michigan has seen its daily COVID-19 case numbers surpass 4,000. As of Wednesday, the state had 192,096 cases and 7,419 have died from the virus.

Michigan Department Health and Human Services (DHHS) Chief Medical Executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun said during Thursday’s press conference that if current trends continue and nothing more is done, the state could be experiencing 100 new deaths per day by the end of next month.

Given the concerning trends in the absence of her executive orders, Whitmer said she sent a letter to GOP legislative leaders this week urging them to codify her statewide mask mandate as soon as they return for session — something that state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) and House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R-Levering) have previously made clear they are not interested in.

“Something this important, this critical to saving lives, deserves the Legislature’s stamp of approval,” Whitmer said regarding the mask mandate. “… I want to be clear: This is the law under [DHHS] epidemic orders. But we do think that it would be helpful to our health, our safety and our economy if it was codified in a bipartisan way with the Legislature, and that’s what we’ve asked for.”

Whitmer again said the Supreme Court decision has “muddied the waters” about what is law and what is not, but the political rhetoric coming from Republicans has made the situation worse.

“I do believe that bipartisan embracing of masking up would significantly improve compliance,” Whitmer said, as “the political rhetoric has created a lot of confusion and unnecessary suspicion around the efficacy of masks.”

She urged GOP leaders to take up codifying the order as their top priority during the upcoming Lame Duck session.

Michigan at ‘tipping point’ with COVID-19 outbreak

Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, the state’s chief medical executive, said Thursday that she is “very concerned” about the rate at which the COVID-19 virus is spreading through Michigan.

“We have models that estimate that at the rate we’re going, if we don’t do anything else, if we don’t change our behaviors, we could be seeing up to 100 deaths a day by the end of December,” Khaldun said.

In addition to the state now investigating its largest number of outbreaks since it began tracking them (more than 590), around 7.5% of tests are now coming back positive. That number has been steadily increasing over the past five weeks.

Michigan is also now experiencing more than five times the number of cases it did in early September, Khaldun said.

Although the DHHS is now actively preparing to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine once a safe and effective one becomes available, which will hopefully be this winter, Khaldun noted that only limited qualities will be available at first and it will take months beyond that for enough vaccinations to significantly decrease infection rates.

Because of that, Khaldun urged caution in the meantime and especially during the holiday season.