LANSING - “We have got to take action now,” said Whitmer. “This week, I sent a letter to the Republican leaders in the legislature urging them to pass legislation that requires Michiganders to wear masks in indoor places and crowded outdoor areas.”

She clarified that it is a law for masks to be worn in Michigan under the DHHS Director's epidemic order.

“Our numbers show that this pandemic is not gone in fact, it is arguably at the worst numbers we’ve seen in this country,” said Whitmer. “The president has said he wants to see a relief package and it might be the one thing we can all hopefully can agree on.”

The Governor urged companies that can have employees work from home to implement remote working. For companies that have employees in office, she reminded them to take COVID-19 precautions to keep their employees safe.

“We are very concerned about what we are seeing across the state with COVID-19,” said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun. “We are seeing more than five times the number of new cases per day now then we saw in early September.”

Khaldun said there are currently 261 cases per million people in the state of Michigan. Cases have been on a rise for nine-weeks straight.

“We have models that estimate that at the rate we are going, if we don’t do anything else, if we don’t change our behaviors, we could be seeing up to 100 deaths a day by the end of December,” said Khaldun.

In the press conference, Khaldun said that as many as 50% of positive cases they’ve investigated have no idea how they contracted the virus.

When a vaccine becomes available, Khaldun reiterated that it will first be distributed to high-risk citizens and frontline workers first.