DETROIT, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) — Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey attracted criticism after making statements on a WJR-AM radio interview this past Monday.
He suggested in the interview that state health officials should be including the 2-million-plus people who have recovered from COVID-19, inaccurately indicating that they had a natural immunity. He went on to say that would give Michigan the 70 percent immunity supporting full re-opening. According to federal health officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the rate of re-infection is still being studied and at this point is unclear, especially with the number of mutations, or variants, present in the U.S.
State health officials, like federal health officials, say the 70 percent standard can only be met by vaccinations. As of Monday, May 2, 2021, only 50 percent of Michigan residents 16 and older had been fully vaccinated, according to state records. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “MI Vacc to Normal” plan, links re-opening to meeting vaccination rate milestones.
Shirkey also suggested that business leaders individually determine whether to lift COVID-19 limits, which would lead to uneven public-health response, compared to state and county plans.
Criticism of Shirkey’s remarks came from officials from the Committee to Protect Health Care (formerly known as the Committee to Protect Medicare).
“Claiming that 70 percent of Michiganders are immune to COVID-19 is false and dangerous, especially when the claim is coming from someone who is supposed to be a leader,” said Lansing-based family physician, Dr. Farhan Bhatti, a member of the Committee to Protect Health Care. “While Michigan has made great strides getting residents vaccinated and protected, we have a ways to go until we meet that threshold where the virus stops spreading and mutating. These comments from Leader Shirkey are the latest in the long line of inaccuracies and pieces of disinformation that have prolonged this pandemic and led to unnecessary deaths and illnesses.”
Dr. Rob Davidson, a Spring Lake-based emergency physician in west Michigan and Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Health Care, also supports Whitmer’s plan, adding that “after months of complaining about wanting such guidelines, Republicans like Shirkey are demonstrating they’re not serious about public health. If Leader Shirkey truly cared about getting back to normal, he’d take the COVID-19 vaccine and encourage his skeptical followers to do so as well as soon as they can.”
The Committee to Protect Health Care a national group of doctors, health care professionals, and advocates determined to see a pro-patient health care majority in Congress, and a nation “where everyone has the health care they need to thrive.”
