Governor Gretchen Whitmer said Friday that public willingness to comply with COVID-19 orders has helped determine how far she will go with restrictions.
The governor’s held back on tightening COVID orders -- despite rapidly escalating case numbers and hospitalizations in Michigan. The governor said she’s concerned about what might happen once families return from spring break travels.
But Whitmer said she’s reluctant to reimpose prior restrictions because the public has “COVID fatigue.”
“All the best policies in the world don’t do any good if people won’t comply or won’t follow -- do their best to follow them,” she said at an event in Pontiac, where she helped launch a mass vaccination site at the United Wholesale Sports Complex.
The governor said at an event in Pontiac that emergency orders worked early in the pandemic to slow the spread of the coronavirus while vaccines were developed. Now, she said, the plan is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible and encourage everyone to be safe in the meantime.
“And that’s why we have to implore our friends and neighbors to get vaccinated and wear their masks and that needs to be the culture in Michigan until we hit that 70-plus percent of our population vaccinated,” she said.
All Michiganders age 16 and older will be eligible for vaccines Monday. The governor says she’ll get vaccinated Tuesday.
