Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department declares emergency order

The Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department is declaring an Emergency Order requiring screening and social distancing measures at open businesses and operations subject to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Executive Order 2020-21. The emergency order goes into effect today, Monday, April 6 at noon.

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Northwoods Hardware, an essential business, sells local hand sanitizer, offers local delivery

Northwoods Hardware, Home and Garden, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in Glen Arbor this year, is offering curbside pick-up and free local delivery to the Glen Arbor, Empire and Maple City area during the coronavirus stay-at-home order.

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Social distancing is working, Health Department of Northwest Michigan says

Social distancing in northwest Michigan during the coronavirus pandemic appears to be working, Lisa Peacock, health officer with the Benzie Leelanau District Health Department and the Health Department of Northwest Michigan, told community health partners and journalists during a conference call on Wednesday, April 1.

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Empire Asparagus Festival canceled. Other events may follow suit

The Empire Asparagus Festival—originally scheduled for May 15-16 in downtown Empire—has been canceled, festival organizer Paul Skinner told the Glen Arbor Sun. Other popular Leelanau County events have postponed until the fall. The Cedar Polka Festival will be moved from mid-June to September 17-20, 2020.

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Preparing for a Summer of Social Distancing

The paint on the parking lot was barely dry when the first car pulled up to Empire’s public beach to check out the innovative new grid that keeps vehicles, and people, more than 10 feet apart at all times. Two miles south on M-22, Harry Norconk was replanting his asparagus seeds six feet apart so the green spears won’t spread pathogens once they shoot out of the ground in mid-May.

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Grand Traverse County reports first case of community acquired COVID-19 transmission

The Grand Traverse County Health Department announces two additional positive COVID-19 cases, bringing the countywide total to seven. Among the two latest cases, community acquired transmission was determined to be a factor in one case.

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Where to eat in Leelanau during coronavirus shelter-in-place shutdown

Here’s a useful map of all restaurants, eateries, and grocery stores in Leelanau County that are open for takeout, curbside pickup or delivery during Michigan’s coronavirus shelter in place crisis:

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Grocery pop-up opens in grocery-less Empire

There’s a flash of hope today in Empire, amidst very dark times nationwide and worldwide. Frank Lerchen, who owns the Friendly Tavern and Empire Village Inn, is opening a pop-up grocery store in the Village Inn space once occupied by Gemma’s cafe.

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Candle Stick: A Family Memory from the 1918 Pandemic

My grandmother, Beulah Abigail Holliday Whitson, worked as a young woman at Cook County Hospital in Chicago during the 1918 Spanish Flu. As such, she was quarantined in the hospital for many weeks. Her brother Victor gave her a candle stick for Christmas to be used as a simple means to let him know that she was OK. Every night after her shift, she would place the candle in the window of her dorm room and light it to let him know that she was still alive.

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If you travel here from afar, please self-quarantine for 14 days!

Tourists and owners of vacation homes here could conclude that rural northwest Michigan is a safer place to be than in a densely populated metro area during the coronavirus pandemic. But that conclusion is a dangerous one. Here in the Grand Traverse region—as with rural areas across the United States—Munson Medical Center is woefully unprepared to accept a deluge of infected COVID-19 patients.

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