At the beginning of April, Governor Whitmer extended and expanded her “Stay Home, Stay Safe” executive order. The Michigan Governor said, “Michigan has the third-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country, and we’re still on the upswing. We must continue to do everything we can to slow the spread and protect our families.”
In hopes of flattening Michigan’s case number curve, the new order prohibited businesses from requiring their workers to leave their homes to go into work, prohibited gatherings inside residents homes, limited the number of people in a store at one time and encouraged people to limit household members from leaving their homes to purchase non-essential products, according to Michigan.gov.
The new order caused Governor Whitmer to receive a lot of harsh backlash from her state’s residents. One resident, Garrett Soldano, took his frustration to Facebook and started a public group called “Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine,” which now has nearly 380,000 members.
Other residents took their anger to the streets of the State’s Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, to protest the stay-at-home order. The first protest, named ‘Operation Gridlock,’ took place on April 15. According to the Detroit Free Press, several thousand cars took place in the protest while hundreds of people gathered on the Capitol Lawn. At least one ambulance was held to a stop on Grand Ave due to the traffic jam from protesters.
Since the first protest on April 15, there have been many more protests in Lansing, included some armed protests.
While many residents are angry with Governor Whitmer’s stay-at-home order, there are also many residents who support the governor. There is a Facebook group called “Michiganders For Staying Home To Defeat COVID-19,” which has nearly 100,000 members.
