In one of the most counterproductive displays of political activism in recent history, a group of Michigan conservatives gathered on Wednesday to protest the state’s stay-at-home order. As you can predict, social distancing guidelines were not followed and this has led the Governor to respond.
CBS News reports that Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said that Wednesday’s protest may result in the stay-at-home order being further extended. “When you see a political rally – that’s what it was yesterday, a political rally – where people aren’t wearing masks and they’re in close quarters and they’re touching one another, you know that that’s precisely what makes this kind of disease drag out and expose more people,” Whitmer said in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
The protest on Wednesday was led by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and Freedom Fund. While it was initially staged as a gridlock where people would stay in their cars, eventually people started protesting on foot in front of the Capitol. They believed that the stay-at-home order, designed to reduce and eventually eliminate the spread of COVID-19, violated their constitutional right to chill at a Wingstop. “It’s that kind of irresponsible action that puts us in this situation where we might have to actually think about extending stay-at-home orders, which is supposedly what they protesting,” Whitmer said.
Michigan has been one of the states hardest-hit by the disease. As of Thursday, the state has 29,263 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,093 deaths from the disease.