If you’re traveling to Grand Traverse County, please quarantine yourself. That’s the message from the Grand Traverse County Health Department. It's requesting a 14-day self-quarantine for anyone coming to the county from areas with high numbers of COVID-19 cases.
The measure is to prevent the spread of coronavirus in northern Michigan says Wendy Hirschenberger, health officer for the Grand Traverse Coutny Health Department.
"Knowing that we have people who are going to be travelling back from other areas of the country or even potentially coming up to their second homes from southeast Michigan or other communities that have a higher transmission rate right now of COVID-19, it's really just a request to have them quarantine in their house for a full incubation period which is 14 days," she says. "It's really a matter of protecting everybody."
Hirschenberger says people asked to quarantine themselves should not go out at all in public. She says social distancing and staying at home are the best public health tools to fight the coronavirus.
"You should not be going out getting groceries," she says. "You should not be going to the store. You should have either a service bring them to you, or even a neighbor could leave them on your doorstep.”
Last week, Interlochen Public Radio learned of reports of downstate residents coming Up North to stay at summer homes.
Munson Healthcare says an influx of people who may be carriers of the disease could overwhelm the hospitals in the region.
The Grand Traverse County Heath Department says the 14-day self-quarantine should be followed regardless of whether or not a person has symptoms or known exposure to the virus.
