Name: Michiganders are less concerned about coronavirus as cases surge, poll shows
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Michiganders are less concerned about coronavirus as cases surge, poll shows

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Detroit Free Press Michigan is on the precipice of another coronavirus surge, and if attitudes about social distancing and mask-wearing aren't&nbsp;embraced&nbsp;more fully now to stem growing case numbers, the state is headed for a spike that could&nbsp;overwhelm&nbsp;hospitals and sicken thousands more, a coalition of health care and business leaders warned&nbsp;Thursday."We're sort of on the razor's edge," said Wright Lassiter III, the president and CEO of Henry Ford Health System, who is part of the coalition, which includes three other health care systems, four public universities,&nbsp;and business leaders. "We're trying to sound the alarm bells so that we can&nbsp;help educate and inform community."But a new poll of 1,000 Michigan adults shows nearly 40%&nbsp;are less concerned about the virus&nbsp;than they were a month ago.Just 17% of those polled&nbsp;June 11-17 by Alexandria, Virginia-based&nbsp;TargetPoint Consulting&nbsp;said they were more concerned.&nbsp;Those who were surveyed were "reflective of the state as a whole," said Michael Meyers,&nbsp;TargetPoint president."About a quarter of our sample were Republicans, about a third were&nbsp;Democrats and the rest weren't aligned with anyone," Meyers&nbsp;said. "And when we're looking at partisanship, we have to keep in mind that we're looking at all adults, not just registered voters."This&nbsp;comes as the number of new daily coronavirus cases in Michigan topped 600&nbsp;for the first time in seven weeks on Wednesday, and as COVID&nbsp;Act Now, which tracks the spread of coronavirus nationwide, cautioned that the state's risk level and infection rates are&nbsp;now high.&nbsp;&nbsp;The hope, Lassiter said, is that it's still possible to step off that "razor's edge," and push back against the spread of the virus with strategies that are known to work: universal mask wearing, social distancing, avoiding indoor, crowded spaces, routine hand-washing and hand-sanitizing."I think the bottom line is&nbsp;there's not a&nbsp;clear and effective treatment, and there's no cure and there's no vaccine," he said.&nbsp;"From the health care sector's point of view, it's still all hands on deck. "We don't have that many tools in our tool kit. Really, all we have is social distancing,&nbsp;wearing masks over your mouth and your nose, regular hand sanitization and prudence around how much you gather with other human beings and asking them when they're in your presence to be vigilant as well."But the TargetPoint&nbsp;poll suggests willingness to take those precautions is waning.&nbsp;&nbsp;Nearly half of those surveyed —&nbsp;48% — said they were “conflicted, confused or casual” when it comes to following coronavirus health and safety protocols;&nbsp;52% said they were&nbsp;“committed” to such things as mask wearing and social distancing.&nbsp;“There is a sizable minority either currently ignoring or, more often, relaxing the&nbsp;following of safety best practices,” said Meyers, adding that the questions were more fully explored in six virtual focus groups convened June 23-25."It was everything from people that are completely disregarding masks,&nbsp;to getting their mail at the front door instead of bringing it into the garage and disinfecting. It was those types of things, but essentially everyone was beginning to relax."I think the main concern we have is that&nbsp;too much of the compliance is driven by fear, and as fear lessens, then compliance will lessen and will only pick back up when&nbsp;fear goes back up again —&nbsp;driven by bad cases and mortality rates. How can we short-circuit that cycle where people are doing this more out of education and concern for their community than simply out of fear?"Despite the shifting mindsets and reduced safety practices, Michiganders said they remain concerned about the economic impacts of the coronavirus and its potential resurgence.A majority&nbsp;—&nbsp;62% of those surveyed&nbsp;—&nbsp;said they are concerned or extremely concerned about the economy remaining in recession or entering a depression because of the pandemic, and&nbsp;71%&nbsp;are concerned or extremely concerned about a second wave of COVID-19 hitting the state in the fall.DTE Energy Executive Chairman Gerry Anderson said he has seen the precautions people are taking slip in recent weeks.&nbsp;Four weeks ago, he noticed about 70% of people at a Home Depot on the west side of the state were wearing masks. Two weeks later, it seemed as if 50% of people were masked. Over the July Fourth weekend, he said he was surprised to stop at a gas station and find that no one was wearing a mask."I thought, 'this is trouble,' " Anderson said. "You just get this sense from your own observations that things are on the move, but we needed to put data to that to make sure that we weren't sort of stoking our own story here."The poll showed it wasn't just his imagination, and state coronavirus case numbers also reinforce what he's seeing.&nbsp;The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported 610 newly confirmed&nbsp;coronavirus cases Wednesday, pushing the state's total number of cases to 67,237.The higher daily case counts in recent days and weeks have driven up the seven-day average of new cases to 444, the highest it's been since May 24.&nbsp;&nbsp;"You see it in the young, too," Anderson said, noting that Michigan's case numbers are now being driven upward by people under the age of 50. Among those in their 20s,&nbsp;daily new cases per million were nearly four times the levels seen in Michiganders in their 60s, and two-and-a-half times higher than for those in their 40s or 50s.“While young people may feel less vulnerable themselves, they play an unfortunately critical role in spreading the virus, ultimately raising the risk for our most vulnerable,” Lassiter said.Anderson pointed to the hundreds of cases of coronavirus tied to Harper's Restaurant &amp; Brew Pub in East Lansing, and to the crowds of young people who gathered over the holiday weekend at Diamond Lake as examples of scenarios in which people in that&nbsp;20-29-year-old age group&nbsp;didn't take precautions to avoid contracting and spreading the virus.&nbsp;"These are the&nbsp;worrying things&nbsp;for me, and we're seeing that somewhat verified by the polling because it shows a&nbsp;mind shift," Anderson said.To combat the changing way in which&nbsp;Michiganders appear to be thinking about their role in stopping the spread of the virus, the coalition is beginning a marketing campaign, and hopes education can prevent the state from another surge in cases.&nbsp;&nbsp;"We needed to come out and sound the alarm, and essentially say that, we, as a state, need to move now to prevent and reverse some of the trends we're seeing, or we're going to find ourselves predictably where other states have evolved to," Anderson said.Meyers said some of the early conflicting and confusing advice about mask wearing has driven some of the complacence, but he said it appears as if "people are mis-connecting the dots and thinking that because we've relaxed some of the shutdown standards, we can also relax the health and safety standards, as opposed to realizing that it's really the reverse."We can only reopen things if we keep the health and safety standards up," he said.&nbsp; "Relaxing the shutdown doesn't mean we can relax our health care standards, not if we want to continue to&nbsp;open, go back to school and get people back to work."Anderson&nbsp;said there was fast compliance when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued the stay home, stay safe order in early March, and it was driven by fear."Behaviors changed the most when circumstances were most dire and proceeded&nbsp;to be dangerous," Anderson said.&nbsp;"As case levels have come down and hospitals have emptied out, there seems to be a perception of less danger."The problem is if you wait until the signals of danger return, which is, you know, significant numbers of cases and&nbsp;the hospitals filling back up, you're already in trouble&nbsp;and riding&nbsp;the steep curve up and it's hard to dig out from."Our epidemiologists and health care professionals, after watching these signals stir and seeing the polling data, have said we have the responsibility to come out and warn people that we better get our act together&nbsp;or we're going to end up in a predictable place that we're seeing play out elsewhere around the country."Contact Kristen Jordan Shamus: 313-222-5997 or kshamus@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kristenshamus.&nbsp;

Detroit Free Press Michigan is on the precipice of another coronavirus surge, and if attitudes about social distancing and mask-wearing aren't&nbsp;embraced&nbsp;more fully now to stem growing case numbers, the state is headed for a spike that could&nbsp;overwhelm&nbsp;hospitals and sicken thousands more, a coalition of health care and business leaders warned&nbsp;Thursday."We're sort of on the razor's edge," said Wright Lassiter III, the president and CEO of Henry Ford Health System, who is part of the coalition, which includes three other health care systems, four public...

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Kristen Jordan Shamus

The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primarily serves Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, Washtenaw, and Monroe counties.  The Free Press is also the largest city newspaper owned by Gannett, which also publishes USA Today. The Free Press has received ten Pulitzer Prizes and four Emmy Awards. Its motto is "On Guard for 189 Years".

Michiganders are less concerned about coronavirus as cases surge, poll shows

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