{"id":3470,"date":"2020-12-16T14:17:30","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T14:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peoriamag.com\/?p=3470"},"modified":"2020-12-20T14:19:06","modified_gmt":"2020-12-20T14:19:06","slug":"gov-whitmer-allows-high-schools-entertainment-venues-to-reopen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peoriamag.com\/?p=3470","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Whitmer allows high schools, entertainment venues to reopen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dateline\">LANSING, Mich. \u2014\u00a0<\/span>Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the state health department director Robert Gordon announced Friday that the state is lifting a moratorium on in-person instruction for high schools, and college starting in Janurary.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The pause is working,&#8221; Gordon said during the briefing.<\/p>\n<p>The Whitmer administration also announced the reopening of entertainment facilities without concessions, and a continued ban on indoor dining.<\/p>\n<p>The extension of the epidemic order would run through Friday, Jan. 15, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>On Dec. 21, high schools could reopen for in-person learning, according to the order. Colleges and universities would be able to have students return to campus for the winter semester, with a voluntary commitment to wait until Jan. 18 to restart in-person courses.<\/p>\n<p>The order also allowed casinos, bowling centers and movie theatres to reopen with total capacity capped at 100; food and drink concessions closed; and social distancing requirements in place.<\/p>\n<p>Whitmer said if the state continues to see a decline in cases and other positive signs, her administration would consider lifting restrictions sooner.<\/p>\n<p>The extension of the COVID-19 order continued to place a ban indoor dining.<\/p>\n<p>Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Chief Medical Executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun also spoke at the briefing held at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 18, 2020, explaining that she&#8217;s gotten her COVID-19 vaccine. She also said the state is seeing drops in the number of cases across the state.<\/p>\n<p>On Dec. 7,\u00a0Gordon extended the order,\u00a0known as the three-week pause, through Dec. 20.<\/p>\n<p>In the state&#8217;s latest briefing, leaders said they are analyzing hospitalizations, daily case counts and test positivity rates to determine the next step to slow the spread of the virus.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Khaldun said the state saw improvements across all three following the \u201cpause\u201d implemented in mid-November:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hospital capacity dedicated to COVID-19 patients:13-day decline; current capacity is at 17.3% for beds with COVID-19 patients. Peaked at 20.1% on Tuesday, Dec. 1.<\/li>\n<li>Overall case rates: 27-day decline; currently at 439 cases per million. Peaked at 739 cases per million on Saturday, Nov. 14.<\/li>\n<li>Positivity rate: 11-day decline; currently at 10.6% positive tests. Recently peaked at 14.3% on Friday, Dec. 4.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As of Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020,\u00a0the state reached 450,776 COVID-19 cases\u00a0with 11,208 deaths related to the virus.<\/p>\n<p>Friday&#8217;s expected news briefing came on the heels of a panel of\u00a0experts recommending the second COVID-19 vaccine\u00a0to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency was expected to approve the vaccine.<\/p>\n<p>The FDA advisers Thursday, in a 20-0 vote, agreed the benefits of the Moderna vaccine outweighed the risks for those 18 years old and up.<\/p>\n<p>The FDA already gave the\u00a0green light for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which has already been administered to health care workers throughout the state.<\/p>\n<p>The Pfizer vaccine was approved to be safe and effective for use in adults and teenagers 16 and older.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LANSING, Mich. \u2014\u00a0Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the state health department director Robert Gordon announced Friday that the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gov. Whitmer allows high schools, entertainment venues to reopen - Lansing Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/peoriamag.com\/?p=3470\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gov. 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