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Epidemiologist says local health departments still have the flexibility to respond to pandemic

Michigan National Guard

Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced at a press conference on Wednesday that the number of new COVID cases are surging in Michigan.

According to the Governor, the state’s cases are at an all-time peak.

The Governor won’t have the same set of executive powers to respond to the pandemic. Earlier this month, the state supreme court ruled against her emergency powers.

Joshua Petrie is an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan. He said the case increase is a bad sign - but state and local health departments still have the power to respond to the pandemic.

“As we’ve seen with the health department, the state health department issuing mask mandates, there’s some redundancy in powers at the governmental level to respond appropriately,” he said. “They just may not be as flexible in the way they want to do it.”

Petrie said testing has improved - meaning the rise in cases is still likely to be lower overall than what it was in the spring.

“That doesn’t mean it’s a good situation but we are testing a lot more. This number of cases means something different than what it did back then when we only tested the most severe people.”

State health officials say other key indicators - such as hospitalizations and deaths - are also rising.

Petrie said case trends in a place like the Upper Peninsula are particularly concerning.

“That’s definitely something that you worry about because the capacity can get overwhelmed quickly and people who need to be treated can’t get treated whether it’s COVID or heart attacks and those sorts of things.”

The Upper Peninsula is currently listed at the highest risk level on the state website.