Leaving home: The long road back to normalcy begins with words of caution

By Dennis Archambault

Gov. Whitmer knows folks are getting antsy. Many made the point of driving hundreds of miles to create gridlock in the state capitol – creating a risk for public health in the process by protesting collectively outside the capitol building. It has been a month since Michigan residents have been effectively quarantined to their homes since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Michigan. Businesses want to press the restart button and workers want to work. The weather is warming up and people want to play. This may be as difficult a period for the governor as imposing the stay at home order.

The crisis phase is giving way to the tension between “essential” workers and “safe” workers. The latter term was coined by Lee Chatfield,  Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives. “Instead of the government defining who in our state is essential or non-essential, we need to transition and begin asking which activities are safe or unsafe.” The stay at home order was appropriate for the crisis phase of the pandemic, as the curve flattens in Michigan, Chatfield believes there needs to be a plan to reintroduce workers into “safe” productive environments. His comments preceded a Republican proposal to that effect released on April 17.

Gov. Whitmer added more sobering news, projecting a massive state debt as a result of the response to the pandemic. But the glimmer of hope is becoming brighter as promising treatments emerge and the grim statistics plateau. It’s reasonable to translate that hope as finally getting back to normal. The problem is, it won’t be normal at all – for a long time. Workplaces and work behaviors need to be radically redesigned. Social and entertainment practices need to remain largely virtual or limited to small controlled situations. Failure to do it right will result in a resurgence of the pandemic – which has occurred elsewhere and occurred in the United States during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was quick to heed public health advice and lock down his state, is now speculating on how it will create a semblance of normality. In a briefing on April 14, the governor referred to the need to achieve “herd immunity,” a term that public health professionals are familiar with. Essentially, the idea is to promote immunity among the majority of a population to prevent the spread of the disease. “If 80 percent of a population is immune to a virus, four out of every five people who encounter someone with the disease won’t get sick (and won’t spread the disease any further),” according to Johns Hopkins University (https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/achieving-herd-immunity-with-covid19.html). It’s believed that the United States needs to achieve at least a 70 percent herd immunity.

Even with California’s advanced management of the pandemic, Gov. Newsom wouldn’t offer dates at which his state would begin restoring it’s economic and social behaviors. However, he did offer this sobering speculation about when that occurs: “You may be having dinner with a waiter wearing gloves, maybe a face mask,” Newsom suggested. “Dinner where the menu is disposable, where half of the tables in that restaurant no longer appear. Where your temperature is checked before you walk into the establishment. These are likely scenarios as we begin to process the next phase and next iteration.”

With the Michigan legislature following President Trump’s lead, looking at May 1 the end of the stay at home policy, Gov. Whitmer remains focused on public health projections and recommendations, which look well beyond April 30 for a time when it’s safe to leave home.

Dennis Archambault is vice president of Public Affairs for Authority Health.