Citing increased COVID-19 cases in Michigan, Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer has banned gatherings of over 10 people again, even in northern lower Michigan (region 6) and the Upper Peninsula (region 8), where there have been only 66 deaths since they started keeping track back in March.

According to the state’s coronavirus tracker, region 6 only has 38 people currently in the hospital with COVID-19, and there are no coronavirus hospitalizations in the Upper Peninsula.

That doesn’t matter though. No one is exempt from Whitmer’s one-woman rule over Michigan.

The impact of Whitmer’s new order is crushing to Michigan families and even more so if you have lost a loved one this week because now you won’t be able to call up your local funeral home and have a service for more than 10 people.

Inside weddings are nixed too. The brides who thought they were safe re-scheduling their May wedding to August are still out of luck.

Your only hope is to have your wedding or funeral in a church – and to have a pastor who has enough “stones” to open up their church to the public because there are still many who aren’t. 

Churches are exempt from penalties if they violate the state’s emergency coronavirus orders but that doesn’t mean that the pastors and the church boards are opening up or that they’re okay with hosting funerals or weddings.

Also nixed are re-scheduled inside graduation open houses, retirements and birthday bashes.

You’re also out of luck if you are an alcoholic or drug addict going to recovery meetings of more than 10 people. Of course, these folks know that their recovery programs are life and death so they have creative ways of doing what they need to do, regardless of any Whitmer edicts.

Whitmer mentioned three specific events in her executive order as an argument for shutting down the entire state from getting together.

She pointed out 50 coronavirus cases allegedly from a house party in Saline; 187 cases allegedly from a bar in Lansing and 43 cases allegedly from a sandbar party in Torch Lake. So 280 cases (not deaths) are her excuse to shut down events in the whole state because there are young folks participating in “super-spreader” events all over the state. 

Yes, it looks like Whitmer, who cited no actual science or medical evidence in her new 160th and 161th executive order, has somehow miraculously figured out how the coronavirus is spreading – and it’s through the events of family and friends who are gathering together. So they must be restricted.

But you know what doesn’t have to be restricted? Lots of people in Walmart. Lots of people in grocery stores. Lots of people in Home Depot.

And in Whitmer’s executive order it says that her rule not to exceed 10 people does not apply to the “incidental gathering of persons in a shared space, including an airport, bus station, factory floor, restaurant, shopping mall, public pool or workplace.”

The virus is somehow avoiding these locations.

Upper Peninsula Senator Ed McBroom wasn’t too happy about Whitmer’s new order because deaths and hospitalizations have remained low even though cases have increased. 

McBroom said, ”I would very much like to know which specific data the governor is using to back up this decision,” McBroom said. “I always want to believe she has some critical data, but she hasn’t shared it with us.”

That’s because she has no critical data. She has her politics and her power. That’s it.