Novi Times

When the director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human  Services (MDHHS) Robert Gordon was asked why he hasn’t issued guidance mandating another stay-at-home order, he replied that he has faith in “the power  of masks," according to Michigan Capitol Confidential.

When Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued stay-at-home executive orders statewide last March, the state’s daily rate was 91.9 new COVID-19 cases per million residents. In early October, the Michigan Supreme Court struck down Whitmer’s pandemic-related executive orders as unconstitutional. As of Nov. 2, the state’s daily rate was averaging  253.5 new cases per million, nearly three times the rate that triggered the original orders in March.

When Gordon was asked why he hasn’t put another stay-at-home order in place, he replied that he believed in the “the power of masks” in containing the spread of COVID-19.

“We know so much more now than we did in March,” Gordon said, according to Bridge Magazine. “We know about the power of masks, and that enables people to engage in a range of activities that weren’t possible then. So I do think we are better positioned by the science and by the experience to live more fully in a way that we couldn’t in March.”

The mask mandate has been in effect since Oct. 5, just two days after the Michigan Supreme Court struck down Whitmer’s pandemic-related executive orders.

In the weeks since Gordon imposed a mask mandate, daily rates of new COVID-19 cases have increased from 106.4 per million to 267 per million, as of Nov. 1. As of Nov. 13, there have been over 244,000 confirmed cases in Michigan and almost 8,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. Over 8,500 cases have been confirmed today alone, according to Michigan.gov.