CDC director: Answer to Michigan surge is to 'close things down'

Apr. 12—WASHINGTON — The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contradicted the Whitmer administration Monday, saying the answer to Michigan's "acute situation" with COVID-19 is not to surge vaccines but to shut down the state and "flatten the curve."

"Really what we need to do in those situations is shut things down," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said during a Monday briefing.

"I think if we tried to vaccinate our way out of what is happening in Michigan, we will be disappointed that it took so long for the vaccine to work — to actually have the impact."

Walensky was responding to a question about remarks made Sunday by Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, who was critical of the Biden administration for refusing to boost vaccine doses to Michigan as the state combats a surge in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations.

"It's a request that's been made for weeks now, and I think we should have done it weeks ago," Gottlieb said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

But Walensky said the effect of vaccines is delayed, with the results not seen for somewhere between two to six weeks, depending on the vaccine.

"So when you have an acute situation — extraordinary number of cases like we have in Michigan — the answer is not necessarily to give vaccine," Walensky said.

"The answer to that is to really close things down, to go back to our basics, to go back to where we were last spring, last summer, and to shut things down, to flatten the curve, to decrease contact with one another to test to the extent that we have available, to contact trace."

Walensky also said that other states also need vaccine, "and we don't know where the next place is going to be that it's going to surge."

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has called on the Biden administration to surge vaccines to the Michigan, particularly the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

But White House officials say they are sticking to allocating doses to states based on population. The federal government has pledged more therapeutics, mobile units, testing supplies and vaccinators for Michigan to help with the hotspots.

Andy Slavitt, White House COVID-19 adviser, said Monday that officials have to "follow the science," noting that the troublesome virus variants seen in Michigan are also present in other states.

"Our ability to vaccinate people quickly in all of each of those states — rather than taking vaccines and shifting it to playing Whack-a-Mole — isn't the strategy that public health leaders and scientists have laid out," Slavitt said.

Whitmer on Friday urged a two-week pause for youth sports, in-person high school classes and in-door dining, but her call for restrictions was voluntary. Several restaurants and schools indicated they wouldn't make changes to their operations.

Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist on Sunday told CNN that the state can "vaccinate our way out of the pandemic" with the help of an increase or "surge" of vaccine allotments from the federal government.

"What's happening in Michigan can spread through the Midwest, it can spread through the rest of the country, but if we increase rapidly vaccinations coming into the state of Michigan now we can get it out quickly and we can slow this before it spreads to other parts of the country," Gilchrist said.

Gilchrist also defended the governor's Friday request — instead of her issuing new epidemic orders.

"April 2021 is different from where were a year ago in April 2020," Gilchrist said.

"We had a lot of different tools at our disposal to be able to implement those policies to the best extent of our ability to be able to keep the spread down. Those were fought politically tooth and nail here by the Republican Party in the state of Michigan."

"Nevertheless, we still have smart policies in place," he added, noting the state's remaining mask mandate and capacity limits in restaurants.

As for vaccine supply, the Biden administration is working with states to ensure that they're ordering the full amount of vaccine available to them and distributing those vaccines to the places that need them, Slavitt said.

"We want states to be ordering and administering shots as soon as doses are made available from the start," Slavitt said during Monday's briefing.

"The states like Michigan, where we are seeing troubling metrics, we are taking action by deploying resources in four critical areas: Shots and arms, personnel, testing and therapeutics."

Part of that strategy is ensuring state are ordering up to their cap of vaccines and utilizing best practices to "meet the goals of speed and equity," Slavitt said.

The government has also offered "a surge" of federal personnel including CDC response teams to help with case investigations and contact tracing and sent more FEMA staff to administer shots across the state, Slavit added.

He said that federal officials have increased the number of diagnostic tests sent to the state and helped with setting up more testing sites, and is prepared to send additional therapeutic capacity to the state, as well.

Whitmer said Monday that her administration would continue to work with the federal government "to make sure we've got everything we need to take care of Michiganders."

"Because we know this: What's happening in Michigan today can be happening in other states or other parts of the country tomorrow," she said following a tour of an Eastern Michigan University vaccine clinic. "And that's why it's important to squash this and use everything at our disposal to do that."

Asked whether there was a "trigger" that would require a reinstatement of restrictions — such as those imposed on restaurants, schools and youth sports last spring and fall — Whitmer said her administration relies both on data and "public health context" to discern the need for new epidemic orders.

"Here's where we are: Instead of a year ago where this was a novel virus, where we didn't even know that a mask was going to give us 97% protection, we had to take strong actions to keep people safe," she said.

"We now know a lot more about this. We now have PPE. We now have testing. We now have vaccines. We each have enough information to do our part. And that's what we're calling on people to do."

Whitmer emphasized that there are still some epidemic orders in place, including the state's mask mandate and capacity restrictions at restaurants.

But the governor last week stopped short of putting more restrictions in place; instead, she asked for voluntary participation in a two-week pause on in-person learning, youth sports and indoor dining.

"I believe government's role is, when we can't take action to protect ourselves, the government must step in," Whitmer said. "That's where we were a year ago. That's where we were four months ago. We're in a different moment. Every one of us has the ability and knowledge to do what it takes."

mburke@detroitnews.com