Takeout, delivery and outdoor dining are the only way Michigan restaurants can survive during the COVID-19 pandemic. | Pixabay
Takeout, delivery and outdoor dining are the only way Michigan restaurants can survive during the COVID-19 pandemic. | Pixabay
There are three states currently banning indoor dining due to COVID-19 and, despite early optimism, hopes are dissipating that Michigan may remove itself from the list.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has hinted the state could reopen restaurants on Monday, Feb. 1, but she also sent mixed signals about the possibility of bringing relief to the restaurant industry. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy reported that the governor has three metrics upon which she is basing her COVID-19-related decisions: daily positive tests, percentage of hospital beds used for COVID-19 patients and test positivity rates, areas in which the state has shown improvement since it closed the restaurants Nov. 18.
Despite these improvements, the governor instead has been focusing on concerns of higher case numbers and the new variant of the coronavirus that has been recently discovered in the U.K.
Robert Gordon, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services director, has also failed to provide clarity after initially declaring the state’s intent to reopen restaurants on Monday, Feb. 1.
“Our actions on Feb. 1 will depend on what happens with the pandemic between now and then,” he said, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. After hearing that statement, restaurants owners, employees and patrons are left to wait and wonder.
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