#Michigan, Washington announce COVID restrictions as cases surge

More than 11 million COVID-19 cases have now been reported in the United States — the most recent million coming in less than a week, according to the latest data.

Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker topped 11 million US cases on Sunday — a surge that prompted Michigan and Washington to join several other states in ramping up their restriction measures over the weekend.

By Monday morning, 11,038,312 cases were recorded.

The most recent million cases came in just six days. It took 300 days for the country to reach 11 million cases since the first case was diagnosed in Washington state on Jan. 20.

Meanwhile, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration on Sunday ordered high schools and colleges to halt in-person classes, closed restaurants to indoor dining and suspended organized sports — including the football playoffs — in an effort to keep the state’s spiking infection numbers at bay.

Under Whitmer’s order, indoor and outdoor residential gatherings are restricted, some entertainment facilities are closed and gyms are banned from hosting group exercise classes.

The new measures are set to last three weeks.

“The situation has never been more dire,” Whitmer, a Democrat who authorities say was targeted in a kidnapping plot fueled by anger over her earlier virus measures, said at a Sunday press conference. “We are at the precipice and we need to take some action.”

In Washington state, which is also battling a surge in cases, Gov. Jay Inslee on Sunday announced new restrictions on businesses and social gatherings for the next month.

Gyms and some entertainment centers in the state will be required to close their indoor services beginning on Tuesday.

Indoor capacity will be limited inside retail stores — including grocery stores — and multiple-household, indoor social gatherings will be off-limits unless everyone involved has quarantined for 14 days, or tested negative for COVID-19 and quarantined for a week.

Beginning on Wednesday, restaurants and bars will be scaled back to outdoor dining and to-go service.

All 39 of Washington’s counties have been paused in either the second or third phase of a four-stage reopening plan that began in early May following a lockdown imposed in March.

The restrictions imposed by Inslee, also a Democrat, now temporarily places all counties under the same guidelines.

Under the guidelines, people must also avoid non-essential out-of-state travel and self-isolate for two weeks after arriving from another state or country.

The United States has reported 246,224 COVID-19 deaths. The US has the 13th-highest number of coronavirus deaths per capita in the world — or a rate of 746.9 per 1 million people, according to Statista.

With Post Wires