Inside Michigan Gov. Whitmer's coronavirus fight: 'We know we saved lives'

LANSING — Life changed forever for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — and all of Michigan — at 8:49 p.m. on March 10.

That’s when Jim Collins, director of the communicable disease division in the Department of Health and Human Services, informed colleagues the state had confirmed its first two cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“Michigan has joined the ranks of all of the other great lake states,” Collins wrote in an internal email obtained by Bridge Magazine through a Freedom of Information Act request.

So began a public health crisis that has become a defining moment for the first-term Democrat who ran on a pledge to “fix the damn roads” but struggled to do so during her first year of office.

Read more: https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/inside-michigan-gov-whitmers-coronavirus-fight-we-know-we-saved-lives