Etcetera

Fleeing to your Up North getaway? Michigan's rural locals would rather you stay home

March 26, 2020, 7:02 AM

This story has been appearing around the country, wherever you find well-to-do city folk with an impulse to flee their germy cities for the fresh air of their country retreats

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The Upper Peninsula wants the trolls to stay right where they are. (File photo)

The locals are saying: Please stay home. 

Now, in Michigan, they're saying it too. Bridge Magazine reports:

“If you have friends and family downstate figuring since they are out of work they may as well just come UpNorth to the cottage, please encourage them not to,” Traverse City Mayor Jim Carruthers wrote on Facebook Monday.

...Petoskey Mayor John Murphy told Bridge Magazine that limited medical resources — of medical staff, beds and ventilators — at hospitals in Emmet and Charlevoix counties would not “be enough to handle the onslaught if it comes full force.”

At the very least, some officials say, if you do so, keep your big-city self in your own place for 14 days, once you arrive. Said Grand Traverse County Health Officer Wendy Hirschenberger:

“People who are driving up from downstate or other areas of the country that are high-risk need to self-quarantine for 14 days,” she said in a statement to Bridge. “Symptomatic or not, pretend as if you are carrying it and do your part to slow the spread.”

Charlevoix County has four diagnosed cases, Grand Traverse has three and Manistee records just one in the latest state tally Thursday afternoon.


Read more:  Bridge Magazine


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