Monroe Review

State Sen. Dale Zorn (R-Ida Township) and the Senate Republican caucus want more Michiganders to be able to open their businesses and return to work.

“I was extremely disappointed that the governor failed to allow more workers to safely return to work when she extended her stay-at-home executive order,” Zorn wrote in The Monroe News opinion section. “Michigan families deserve to be able to return to their normal lives as quickly and safely as possible,” he said.

Zorn believes Gov. Whitmer went too far in restricting work and activity in the state during the shutdown. “Instead of putting more restrictions on people’s freedoms and livelihoods, the governor should have adopted limited exemptions for workers if they are in low-risk jobs or for those who live in communities with little or no cases of COVID-19.”

Zorn offers the shutdown of garden centers and nurseries as one example. “It doesn’t make sense that people in Michigan can buy lottery tickets and alcohol at the store, but not home and gardening supplies,” Zorn said, according to The Monroe News.

“Rather than having a confusing and nonsensical patchwork of definitions about what is ‘essential,’ it would have been better to focus on what can be done safely and with little to no risk to workers or the public,” Zorn wrote.

Zorn and the Republican Caucus have released a five-phase plan and timetable for getting back to normal called Open Michigan Safely.

“The Open Michigan Safely proposal relies on measurable data concerning risk. It is structured in five phases that consider testing capability, hospital capacity, availability of personal protection equipment and a vaccine or similar medical breakthrough to combat COVID-19,” Zorn wrote in The Monroe News.

The Republican Caucus believes that different regions of the state should be permitted to operate with fewer restrictions, as long as the data shows fewer cases in those areas.

“Areas such as southeast Michigan that are experiencing high case volume and high death rates should be restricted to early phases, while the Upper Peninsula may be able to safely operate under a later-phase designation that appropriately reflects risk in that region,” according to Open Michigan Safely.

Under the Republican Caucus plan, phase two of Open Michigan Safely should begin when cases and deaths fall for five out of seven days and the health care systems are below 75% capacity.

Zorn says he and the Republicans will continue to work with the governor on the best ways to proceed as the crisis unfolds. The Republican plan cautions people that surges in COVID-19 cases are inevitable until we have a vaccine or a cure. When a region has a new outbreak, people must expect restrictions to be put back in place, according to the plan.

“The state must develop resurgence plans that require tightening of restrictions on behavior and activity within regions of our state to combat COVID-19," says Open Michigan Safely.