Why are COVID cases rising in Michigan?
If you’re looking for someone to blame, look no further than our own state Sen. Lana Theis.
It was the Brighton Republican who ranted about the unfairness of high school athletes not being able to play their favorite sports, regardless of the health dangers.
And now, what does expert after expert say about the cause of surging covid cases in Michigan –that high school athletics are a main driver.
Michigan health officials reported earlier this month that youth sports teams were linked to 291 outbreaks that affected at least 1,091 people in Michigan.
As Bridge Magazine reported Friday, “In the last three weeks, infections among those 10 to 19 years-old have increased 117 percent, surpassed only by their parents’ demographic, those 40 to 49. Cases in that age group jumped 127 percent. During this wave, those 10 to 19 comprise 17 percent of all infections, double the rate before the last three weeks.”
This happened after Theis’ Senate Education and Career Readiness Committee adopted a resolution in January urging the governor and state health department to let high school athletics resume just as a more contagious variant was entering Michigan, health consequences be damned.
Now students are getting sick who didn’t have to. They aren’t playing sports; they’re too sick. They aren’t going to school; they’re too sick. They aren’t doing what young people do; they’re too sick.
Theis has a chance to help stop this. Our county is home to many who have been taken in by lies about COVID — that it’s a hoax, that it’s just like getting a cold, that face masks don’t work, and that vaccinations are for wimps. She can keep pandering to those misinformed beliefs — and be complicit in even more needless sickness and even death — or she can step up, tell the truth, and be accountable for her role in prolonging the pandemic.
For the sake of our county, I hope she makes the decent choice.
