How Michiganâs reopening plan compares to other states
Office of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
and last updated 2021-05-04 21:16:16-04
LANSING, Mich. â Governor Gretchen Whitmer is touting her âVacc to Normalâ plan and challenging more Michiganders to get vaccinated with the promise to fully reopen the state in the coming months.
The plan ties state vaccination rates to the easing of COVID-related restrictions, with a planned full reopening two weeks after 70% of adults are vaccinated.
Two weeks after
55% of Michiganders have received at least their first dose, in-person work will again be allowed for all sectors of business.
Then, two weeks after
In June 2019, the Michigan House approved bipartisan measures that added athletic trainers to the list of reporters with near unanimous approval and sent them to the Senate. But they never came up for a vote in the full Senate.
Abby Walls, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, said the COVID-19 pandemic delayed Senate action on the measures. At least one measure sat in the Senate for about 18 months before lawmakers took action, voting to change the bill before advancing it.
This year, Walls noted the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee recently discussed five bipartisan bills that would:
Proposed financial disclosure bills wouldn’t make current lawmakers’ finances public
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A new proposal in the Michigan House would compel lawmakers and state officers to disclose their personal financial interests for the first time but that information wouldn’t be public until after they leave office, an arrangement that if signed into law, would diverge significantly from the 48 other states that currently require financial disclosure.
Michigan has long been an outlier when it comes to identifying and regulating potential financial conflicts of interest for elected officials. It’s one of two states – and the only one with a full-time legislature – with no requirement for state public officials to disclose basic financial information, including income sources, business investments, gifts and travel compensation.
From USA TODAY Network and wire reports
Alabama
Montgomery: Vaccines for COVID-19 are now widely available, but some people remain hesitant to take the shots, State Health Officer Scott Harris said Friday. After months of struggling with getting an adequate supply into the state, Harris said health officials are now trying to battle some people’s reluctance to sign up for doses. While people can be reluctant to take the vaccine for a variety of reasons, one is the false belief that the vaccine is more dangerous than the coronavirus, he said. “If you can identify one single issue that is a problem, it’s that there are people who are just convinced that the vaccine is somehow more dangerous than the disease,” Harris told reporters. “That’s a false belief we have to try to combat as often as we can. It’s simply not true.” Nearly one-third of Alabama’s population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. However, that figure ranks the state third from last