(WWJ) In the midst of a conversation with WWJ's morning show about protests and lawsuits against her stay home order, and safety in public parks, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a dire warning for people across Michigan.
Life may never be the same, or at least it won't for a long time into the future.
"Before we're back to a real normal, and we may never have the normal that we had prior to COVID-19, we may always have to be vigilant and mindful about what a big crowd means. A vaccine really is critical for us to think about gatherings that have lots of people in them. Until then, we've got to limit the number of people who congregate and make sure that we have masks as we re-engage parts of our economy. We're going to be doing it in increments so that we can measure along the way and make sure that we don't see an outcropping of COVID-19 along the way."
Whitmer said we're going to have to teach children as part of their regular education about the dangers of the virus and think up new models and ways of doing business in the wake of this pandemic.
"These (social distancing and masks) are all important factors that are going to be part of our lives for quite a while," Whitmer told WWJ's Tom Jordan and Roberta Jasina. "We're going to have to function in a COVID-19 space for quite a while."
This comes as Congressman Paul Mitchell in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan filed a lawsuit against Whitmer alleging various due process violations, constitutional rights violations over her executive orders. One one side, Republicans like Mitchell want public life and business to resume for the sake of the economy; On the other, there are public health fears about places like Belle Isle being overrun with people outside with friends and family when the weather turned nice this weekend.
She weighed in on both of those issues, saying of Mitchell's suit, "I'll just observe that every action we've taken has been motivated by saving lives in Michigan. There's no doubt that in the midst of a global pandemic, lives in Michigan have been very different."
On Belle Isle, she said there will be extra patrols and a higher visibility of police to encourage social distancing.
She added, as always in these talks that the virus "has hit Michigan in a unquely hard way." "Over 4,000 people in our state have died and we know we're not out of the woods. We've got COVID-19 in all parts of our state, and growing," the governor said, adding everything she has done to shut down bars, restaurants and businesses, mandate masks and limit people inside grocery stores and pharmacies has been "taken to benefit public health."
On the demonstrations, some with armed and angry protesters, she said she understands their frustrations. "It's hard to be home this long, it's stressful, I respect their right to dissent and even to demonstrate," Whitmer said.
She added some of the demonstrations have been disturbing but she has never felt unsafe. She is concerned, however, that some of them appear not to be observing social distancing rules in their public displays of rage. "I am concerned that people are trying to re-engage, that they do so in a way that's putting themselves and others in jeopardy," the governor said.
Host Tom Jordan pressed the governor on the issue of health care, saying he knows someone with cancer risk who can't get mammograms. The governor said that shouldn't be happening, as preventing healthcare isn't part of her stay home, stay safe order.
"Every oncology patient can get the kind of care that they need right now ... It's really important that people don't put off these critical medical needs," Whitmer said.
She added that when hospitals were at capacity and protective gear was in short supply, the state had to mandate that non-essential services were canceled. But now all necessary procedures should have resumed.
Still, there's fear, and anxiety, about when life should resume and what that looks like. And now there are legal challenges
Mitchell basically says in his lawsuit that the governor simply went too far; that she doesn't have the authority to do what she did with those executive orders, and as a result she is preventing people from getting necessary medical treatment, and enjoying pretty much their right to live a normal life.
Whitmer has said — with executive powers granted under laws passed in 1945 and 1976 — she is on solid constitutional ground with these orders, and that all of her actions amid the COVID-19 pandemic have been in the best interest of public health.
"There does seem to be some conflict as to how far the governor can go, or does she need legislative approval to make these executive orders keep on going," Langton said. "But, obviously the court is going to have to decide."
This comes after the Republican-led Michigan Legislature last week refused to extend the state's coronavirus emergency declaration and passed legislation to authorize a lawsuit challenging Whitmer's authority. Whitmer, who extended the emergency anyway, said she would veto that bill.
Ruling in a separate case, the Michigan Court of Claims last week found that Whitmer's stay-home order, in effect through May 28, is constitutional.