The Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association has announced a new partnership with BYOD to screen restaurant and hotel employees for COVID-19 and to do
Feb 3, 2021
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has granted restaurants the option to operate with limited indoor dining starting Tuesday, after months of having to survive on takeout and outdoor seating during a Michigan winter. Yet the damage thousands of restaurants have endured is likely to be lasting.
The state restaurant association estimates 3,000 restaurants have closed and contends that the industry employs 200,000 fewer people than it did last year as Whitmer’s “pause” on indoor dining meant establishments couldn’t take in holiday revenue.
Michigan has also been an outlier for these blanket restrictions only Washington state has a similar statewide ban on indoor dining which has encouraged Michigan residents who live close enough to the border to flock to neighboring states that have more relaxed restrictions.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has granted restaurants the option to operate with limited indoor dining, after months of having to survive on takeout and outdoor seating
Throughout this year, unlike any we’ve ever seen, Whitmer has remained disciplined, focused and on message, despite organized protests of her COVID-19 emergency orders, a murder plot engineered by domestic terrorists and a recalcitrant Legislature.
And in the last statewide poll, taken in December, she continued to score unusually high approval ratings. However many protesters thronged to the state Capitol, a majority of Whitmer’s constituents has been willing to believe that she is on the right track.
Michigan continues to log daily deaths, but the state’s COVID metrics are finally trending in the right direction, after a winter surge that set Michigan back. But we’re just rounding the curve, and the road ahead isn’t particularly smooth.