The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) extended its three-week statewide “pause order” Monday, with restrictions on restaurants and bars, high schools and colleges, organized sports, theaters and entertainment centers, and other areas of public life remaining in place through December 20.

Under the order, high schools, colleges, and universities throughout Michigan will remain on remote learning through December 20. Sports and extracurricular activities also remain suspended. K-8 grades can continue to meet for in-person instruction under the extension (Traverse City Area Public Schools is currently holding face-to-face learning for K-5 classrooms and some special education classrooms as of this week). One notable change to the order is that closed-campus boarding schools, such as Interlochen Center for the Arts, can now meet for in-person instruction on campus. Indoor dining remains prohibited at restaurants and bars, though outdoor dining is permitted provided individuals are seated no more than 6 to a table and tables are spaced at least six feet apart. Outdoor food service establishment settings can also include a single household dining inside an igloo, hut, or other small, enclosed space, provided that employees enter fleetingly or not at all. 

Organized sports are not permitted unless teams follow MDHHS enhanced guidelines for sports without spectators. Gyms are open for individual exercise with mandatory masking and additional strict safety measures. Casinos, movie theaters, and group exercise classes remain closed. Individualized activities with distancing and face masks are still allowed: retail shopping; public transit; restaurant takeout; personal-care services such as haircuts, by appointment; and individualized exercise at a gym, with extra spacing between machines. Regardless of industry, any employees who can work from home in Michigan are required to do so. Masks are required to be worn at any indoor or outdoor gatherings. An FAQ page is available providing more details on the order. 

State leaders said at a press conference Monday that the extension was necessary as Michigan’s testing positivity rate sits at 14.1 percent and 79 percent of hospital beds are occupied in the state. “Our progress is fragile,” said Governor Gretchen Whitmer. “We need more time to measure the numbers and ensure our trend helps our hospitals so they can stabilize.” MDHHS Director Robert Gordon said that metrics the state would be looking at in the coming days to determine lifting the order include the percentage of hospital beds with COVID patients, the overall number of COVID-19 cases, and the state testing positivity rate. He indicated restrictions would likely be lifted not all at once but on a phased basis, with high schools, theaters, casinos, auditoriums, stadiums, bowling, arcades, and bingo (all without concessions) first in line to be reopened. That is because those are settings where masks are consistently worn, Gordon said, as opposed to in-person dining at restaurants and bars, which he said remained a high-risk activity and would likely not be able to return 12 days from now.

The MDHHS order first went into effect at 12:01am on November 18 and was set to expire at the end of the day Tuesday before it was extended. Gordon previously said the goal of the order was to target the most risky practices and businesses - notably those involving indoor gatherings - while trying to avoid a broader shutdown.

Earlier Monday prior to the state press conference, the Michigan Health & Hospital Association - which represents all 133 community hospitals in the state - issued a statement pleading with MDHHS to extend the order. The group wrote that the order “is doing what we expected: it’s slowly stabilizing the spread of COVID-19 and leading to stabilized hospitalizations. To see meaningful change that truly alleviates stress on the healthcare system, we urge the state to extend protections through the holiday season. We still don’t know what impact Thanksgiving will have, but we do know that with the recent pause, we’re seeing some slight improvements. As a state, we must not let our guard down and reverse this progress.” The group added that shutdown restrictions “are working” and that “with vaccines now in sight, nobody wants to see the progress of the last three weeks go to waste.”

The shutdown order was issued as well as extended through the MDHHS and is not an executive order from Whitmer. While previous executive orders issued by Whitmer were overturned in court, MDHHS is exercising separate epidemic powers granted to health authorities to respond to pandemics and other health crises.