Gretchen Whitmer fires back over Trump Covid doctor’s call to ‘rise up’ against lockdown

‘I’m not going to be bullied into not following reputable scientists and medical professionals’ says Ms Whitmer

Gretchen Whitmer was stunned when she heard a call by White House Covid-19 adviser, Dr Scott Atlas, for people in Michigan to “rise up” against new rules to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

“It actually took my breath away, to tell you the truth,” Ms Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, said during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

“We are in the midst of the worst weeks of this pandemic, we’ve been going through this for nine months, and right now the numbers are as bad as they’ve been at any given time, and so we have to take aggressive measures.”

At the weekend she announced a number of new rules to help curb the resurgence of coronavirus across Michigan.

All in-door dining, in-person learning, group exercise classes, non-professional sports, and events at theatres, casinos, and similar venues, have been stopped for three weeks starting on Wednesday.

Ms Whitmer has been frustrated by the lack of a federal response to the pandemic.

“With the vacuum of leadership in Washington, DC, it’s on the states’ governors to do what we can to save lives,” she said.

On Sunday evening, Governor Whitmer told CNN that she knows the White House likes to single out both her and her state, but “I’m not going to be bullied into not following reputable scientists and medical professionals.”

Dr Atlas became a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce in August.

As a neuroradiologist, he has no formal background in infectious diseases or epidemiology, and the advice he has given has been criticised by many in the medical and scientific community.

He has questioned the efficacy of wear masks as well as other advice offered by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr Atlas added to his list of questionable advice he has given when he took to Twitter on Sunday to tell Michiganders to resist and oppose the new restrictions.

The tweet was particularly galling given the kidnap plot targetting Governor Whitmer that was foiled by the FBI in October.

Donald Trump made a similar call to arms in the early days of the pandemic when he tweeted: “Liberate Michigan!” on 17 April.

To date, Michigan has had more than 289,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and 8,438 officially recorded deaths.

Governor Whitmer says that modelling shows another 20,000 people in Michigan could die between mid-November and mid-February unless aggressive action is taken.

The number of new cases per day in the state has risen more than 100 per cent in under two weeks.