The Michigan governor says COVID-19 infections could fall

LANSING, Mich. – After leading the nation’s daily rate of COVID-19 cases for weeks, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Sunday that Michigan could see a decline in infections.

Whitmer has extended a pandemic order that limits business capacity and requires masks in public, but the Democrat has avoided other restrictions in place during previous overvoltages, including the suspension of the indoor restaurant. Instead, he urged a voluntary pause in activities and pushed for more vaccines from the White House, which he said would help with other logistics, but would continue to allocate based on population.

Announcements

“We’re starting to see, you know, the start of what could be a slowdown, which is welcome,” Whitmer told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But what’s also welcome is that we’ve received a lot of help from the Biden administration to raise some therapeutics here, get some boots on the ground, and I think all of these things will be really important to us to curb the tide of that we are seeing “.

He did not discuss specific data and Michigan does not publish coronavirus-related data on Sundays. Health officials said on Friday that the seven-day average positivity rate had dropped in recent days to 17.1%, but remained above the December 14.4% high.

Michigan has reported more than 785,000 cases of COVID-19 and recorded more than 16,800 deaths. The state says nearly 30 percent of Michigan residents age 16 and older have been completely vaccinated.

Announcements

Related: Michigan governor responds to critics say she changed her stance on science monitoring during the pandemic