MI Governor executive order calls for masks to be worn DURING HS football games by players
The new order states that a face covering must be worn at all times by athletes, unless they can maintain 6 feet of social distance.
So those in football, soccer and volleyball -- sports that just returned this week -- will need to wear face coverings at all times. Cross country, golf and tennis can go without masks, if they can stay apart. Swimmers are the only exception to any coverings.
“The COVID-19 virus is easily spread through airborne particles and can affect everyone differently,” Gov. Whitmer said in a release. "By wearing a face covering when proper distancing is not possible, athletes will be better protected from contracting the virus and spreading it to family members, frontline workers, and vulnerable populations.
“We cannot afford to let our guard down. As we continue to fight this virus, we need to make smart and informed choices so we can beat COVID-19 together.”
September 10th, 2020 at 7:46 AM ^
I do this constantly. Though maybe not very silently.
September 10th, 2020 at 3:43 PM ^
I like wearing a mask so I can wear obnoxious shirts with no repercussions. Today I am wearing a "supbitch" t-shirt like I saw Tommy Lee wear on Ridiculousness. I practice transactional law. Poorly.
September 9th, 2020 at 10:27 PM ^
Two teams enter!!!
One team ..er uh...
Both teams leave?....safely?
September 9th, 2020 at 10:28 PM ^
Michigan has recently gone to a full face shield for this purpose. I wonder if high schools are gonna have this or are gonna have actual face masks like we see everyday?
September 9th, 2020 at 10:31 PM ^
Cripes. Is that going to fog up?
September 10th, 2020 at 9:05 AM ^
The players say they're getting used to them and it's not too bad.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:27 PM ^
The NFL had Oakley design a face shield with vents that is less likely or doesn't fog up. Here is a link:
September 9th, 2020 at 10:33 PM ^
Those are sweet...and much better than a cloth gaiter that has had large holes cut for easier breathing.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:39 AM ^
Sadly, ironically so, we may never see them worn in real game action.
September 10th, 2020 at 9:06 AM ^
Probably costs too much for most HS.
September 9th, 2020 at 10:31 PM ^
Took my son (he's 4) to soccer practice tonight and coach told us there was a new mandate on wearing masks in any contact sport. I kinda laughed and said, "ha, right".... "No, I'm serious".
I'm all for common sense things like wearing masks inside, but this is just starting to get ridiculous.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:12 AM ^
On the bright side, November 3 is coming soon. Something tells me it magically will disappear soon after that date.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:37 AM ^
Excuse me, I was told it would disappear by easter
September 10th, 2020 at 8:57 AM ^
Exactly. It'll be gone when the weather warms up in April. All the manuals say so.
September 10th, 2020 at 9:06 AM ^
Read the... Excuse me.. read the manuals.
September 10th, 2020 at 5:14 AM ^
And you also believe Trump.
September 10th, 2020 at 7:44 AM ^
Nothing about covid will change after November 3rd but the media coverage and political fighting will surely change. The media and politicians just won't care as much because the votes will be in.
Then maybe we will start to see science based decisions vs political ones.
September 10th, 2020 at 8:20 AM ^
The pandemic will be over after an election in the USA. Makes sense....
September 10th, 2020 at 8:21 AM ^
"maybe we will start to see science based decisions vs political ones."
LOL.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:02 PM ^
precisely.
September 10th, 2020 at 11:16 AM ^
First it was Easter, then Memorial Day, then 4th of July, now it’s the election. ? so let’s pretend the entire world shut their countries down simply because the Democrats want to influence the election. Now put your tin foil hat back on and go take a seat at the kids table.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:38 AM ^
I have two beefs:
1) Why wasn’t this part of the executive order that allowed sports to be played? This constant waffling makes things worse. A week goes by with preparation being done WITHOUT masks and all of a sudden a mask is needed to practice and play.
2) When we will ever see the “science” behind these decisions made by Whitmer?
Not really against any of the orders in general. Just fed up with the secrecy behind HOW the determinations are made. Sure seems political and more about control than science.
If they are “following the science” it would be EXTREMELY easy to point to a Fing chart and say - “we’re here and we need to get there”.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:54 AM ^
I’m assuming you call your farts “beefs”.
September 10th, 2020 at 7:40 AM ^
She has a tough job during a pandemic where you can't please everyone. No matter what she does she will get dumped on by a large portion of the public. With that said, I am in the education field and there was a lot of waffling and contradictions last spring with remote learning.
September 10th, 2020 at 7:55 AM ^
It was part of the original EO from last week, people just glossed over it. The announcement on Wednesday was just a clarification of the earlier EO.
September 11th, 2020 at 8:30 AM ^
I had my sons' seasons cancelled. I was able to move my oldest to another league, and am now scrambling to figure out a league for my younger sons (6 and 4). I am more than willing to have kids wear masks and get to play, than have a cancelled season. My kids played with them without issue.
September 9th, 2020 at 10:31 PM ^
Our defense wouldn't need to wear masks against Ohio State :(
September 9th, 2020 at 10:34 PM ^
Now you can virtue signal even while playing.
Makes about as much sense as allowing guys to tackle, bleed, and sweat on each other for 3 hours but then don't allow the handshake at the end.
September 10th, 2020 at 8:25 AM ^
Don't worry, the mask that hasn't been washed in 3 weeks that's made out of the same material as the t-shirt I'm wearing is exactly the same as wearing a hazmat suit.
September 9th, 2020 at 10:39 PM ^
As noted in the other thread, 1000+ high school football games have been played in America over the last month, and there are no recorded cases of community spread related to any of those games.
But, fine. It's a rule that I doubt will have a significant incremental impact on spread. But at least they're playing. That's the most important thing. We're at least moving forward somewhat.
September 9th, 2020 at 11:48 PM ^
A couple of things. First, judging off previous reporting, I wouldn't take footballscoop.com as a particularly credible, unbiased source. Second, and more importantly, they are basing their numbers off, at most, 4 weeks of data. I brought this anecdote up the other day but it bears repeating. At the end of May, an ABC reporter tweeted out how ABC looked at 21 states that reopened at the beginning of May and saw no increases in % positivity, hospitalizations, or death rates. That tweet blew up, with many people citing it as a reason why shutdowns don't work and should end. However, by June-July, % positivity, hospitalizations, and deaths exploded in the majority of these states. Moral of the story, 4 weeks just simply isn't enough data.
I'm not saying that HS football will result in any "superspreader" events and I tend to agree that the mask mandate won't have much of an impact on spread, but I do think it's worth being cautious about drawing any big conclusions from 2-4 weeks of data.
As an aside, I appreciate you acknowledging that this is a step in the "right direction" for the "reopen" camp. I'm not sure how people can look at this as anything more nefarious than a compromise.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:36 AM ^
Your 1st and 2nd paragraphs are completely fair. Outside of Utah, no state has played 4 weeks of High School football. I acknowledge those data points are nothing more than a preliminary directional indicator (at best).
Ultimately, I just want to move forward. And live football games with masks required is taking a step forward.
September 10th, 2020 at 8:27 AM ^
Hopefully you're wanting to play football only if it can be done in a way that doesn't present a significantly elevated public health risk.
September 10th, 2020 at 11:52 AM ^
Did you look at the way they made that determination? They eyeballed a bunch of state level data and didn’t even manage to do that correctly. They asserted that no increases in cases in states meant no significant community spread from football, then proceeded to show states with increases in number of cases. I don’t know if there have or haven’t been cases caused by football. I do know that article does nothing to provide useful insight on the question.
September 10th, 2020 at 11:10 AM ^
Governor Whitmer is against the spread offense.
September 9th, 2020 at 10:41 PM ^
She’s high
September 9th, 2020 at 10:43 PM ^
The proper phrase is "Drunk on power"
September 9th, 2020 at 11:33 PM ^
As far as abuse of power goes, requiring kids to wear masks while playing a contact sport in the middle of a global pandemic is pretty low on the list.
September 9th, 2020 at 11:51 PM ^
Well, no, it's not pretty low on the list when it's absolutely useless and there is simply no basis for requiring it. It really is quite simple - the masks do not stop the spread of the virus because the virus is not impeded by these masks - the virus is smaller than what the masks are able to filter.
Unfortunately, science and data waved bye-bye to our governor several months ago but many, many of our citizens have been indoctrinated and simply can't think for themselves.
Ask yourself this - between early March (or before) through April 26, why did we not have massive outbreaks across the state? That is the period before the most stringent mandates took effect (April 27) and almost no one was wearing a mask.
People like our governor really need to get out a bit and see how people are really living and working. I can attest that there are many, many businesses that never required masks and they have had zero issues.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:07 AM ^
I'm not sure where to begin other than by stating that everything you just said can be easily refuted with a simple Google search. Masks cannot reduce transmission rates to zero, but they can seriously reduce rates of transmission. Both cases and deaths in MI peaked during the window you provided. Lastly, prior to seat belts being mandatory, I'm sure you could find plenty of people who went their whole lives without wearing a seat belt and lived to tell the tale. That doesn't change the fact that automobile deaths declined after seat belt mandates. I don't who/what/where you're getting your information from, but tell them to do better.
September 10th, 2020 at 4:45 AM ^
You mean a censored google search, where we're fed only the state's health propoganda? OK
September 10th, 2020 at 8:57 AM ^
Please please please please please tell me this is about Little Trump's tweet about Mob Psycho 100 taking up the image results.
September 10th, 2020 at 10:38 AM ^
Not sure what search you're doing but you only have to look at our state's own provided data to show that deaths peaked in early April, well before the most stringent mandates were put in place.
Please cite your evidence that "they can seriously reduce rates of transmission". The only thing I have seen is speculation and when we're dealing with placing significant restrictions on people's lives we need evidence, not speculation or "it might be a good idea".
As a society we make trade-offs everyday in multiple areas. Your seat belt example is a very good one - we actually have data that proves that case and is minimally invasive and inconvenient. We also have data that shows that if everyone wore a helmet in their vehicles at all times we would save some lives and/or reduce brain injuries. We could also require the type of head restraints as NASCAR. We also know that the flu kills 10s of thousands of people every year yet we don't mandate flu vaccines. The difference between these examples and masks is that we actually have data in the former examples and only speculation with mask effectiveness.
Our state's response and plan has been an absolute disaster. An objective look at the data has shown for months that there was simply no reason to lockdown other than 3 counties on the east side of the state. Reasonable precautions were warranted but unfortunately our governor decided to take a one size fits all approach with no data or science to back up the majority of her orders and decisions. Most of her orders and decisions actually contradict the state's data. Simply stating "science" over and over without being able to provide rational explanations is inexcusable.
September 10th, 2020 at 4:55 AM ^
Great post, but there's no reasoning with the Hitler Youth on this site.
September 10th, 2020 at 8:36 AM ^
True, we should blindly support the executive making her own rules for people's lives because... wait wut?
September 10th, 2020 at 11:46 AM ^
That should be a banning.
September 10th, 2020 at 11:59 PM ^
"Mastodon" is only a comment or two away from a banning, especially if he continues posting stuff as bad as that "Hitler Youth" comment.
September 11th, 2020 at 5:17 AM ^
March 26 - April 26 was during the stay at home order... The purpose of mitigation is to reduce spread. MI cases rose from their June low and have been flat since. If spread weren’t mitigated then we would see growth.
A few examples of lack of mask wearing not showing bad results isn’t evidence for getting rid of the mandate. The plural of anecdote is not data. Research on the effectiveness of masks say that they’re helpful at best or a minor inconvenience at worst. The thing about people with opinions and no expertise is that no one ever listens to them and thank god for that.
September 10th, 2020 at 2:11 AM ^
Except that she's run roughshod over our form of government. Let the people act through their legislators, rather than being dictated to via imperial fiat.
Not sure our republic will recover from the massive swing of authority from the legislative to the executive branches both at the federal level and many of the states.
September 10th, 2020 at 7:58 AM ^
You can argue about the number and scope of the executive orders that have been issued, but surely you see the necessity for the existence of executive orders during a global pandemic or a large national security event? Also, if you are truly concerned about the expanding power of the executive, the first spot you should place blame is at the feet of those legislators you reference. Legislators have consistently favored inaction over tough decision making, have consistently voted to expand the power of the executive, and, in the age of extreme partisanship, have increasingly used the filibuster to block legislation that is unpopular with their base.