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If the actions of Michigan's various county-level boards are any indication, Covid-19 will find a comfortable home in the state for some time to come. After complaining of too much top-down governance early in the pandemic, the easing of restrictions has left county and school officials in charge of Covid response, and the results have been mixed, to say the least.
Welcome to Grand Traverse County (Photo: Facebook)
Bridge Michigan looks at how commissioners, school boards and others are being whipsawed by not only local activism, but by the varying political stripes of those who serve:
Grand Traverse County commissioners on Wednesday adopted a resolution banning vaccine mandates and imposing conditions on public health advertising, while Livingston County commissioners turned down $1.5 million in pandemic funding from the state.
Elsewhere Wednesday, Kalamazoo and Allegan county health departments became the second and third in Michigan to require masks for all K-6 school students, while protesters gathered in the first county to do so — Genesee — demanding local officials reverse the policy.
Grand Traverse, the story notes, is the second-most vaccinated county in the state, but still adopted a resolution that prohibits mandatory immunizations for government employees as well as:
...discouraging private employers from adopting any policy that would “hinder medical autonomy.”
Adopted by the GOP majority in a 5-1 vote, the resolution also sought to undermine potential mask mandates by prohibiting the county from questioning “any citizen’s claim to exemption from wearing a facemask or any other similarly mandated preventive activity."
And moving forward, according to the resolution, the Grand Traverse County Health Department will be required to include a disclaimer on any materials referencing vaccinations, directing residents to "discuss the risks and benefits" with a trusted healthcare professional.
What's more, the commissioners directed staff to send the resolution to "all 3,005 other counties in the United States," for no stated reason. Critics cited this move as proof the concerns are not about public health but conservative politics.
Grand Traverse County is where Commissioner Ron Clous responded to a citizen statement at a Zoom meeting by holding up his AR-15 rifle in front of his computer camera. Neighboring Leelanau County is where a road commissioner was pressured to resign after casually dropping a racial slur during a meeting this time last year; he said he didn't need to wear a mask because Covid-19 was "because of them n-----s down in Detroit."
So it's fair to say northern-Michigan rural governance is unlikely to get any citations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
