Two things arrived in Lansing on Wednesday: More ventilators for COVID-19 patients clinging to life and angry people protesting the current strategy for keeping more people off ventilators.

It's not exactly certain how this showdown will end. The "Operation Gridlock" protest that tied downtown Lansing in knots in defiance of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order was the first large-scale civil disobedience we've seen during the coronavirus pandemic.

Organizers' plans to keep everyone in their cars to avoid spreading germs did not go well.

Protestors congregated on the Capitol lawn, defying the advice of every public health expert who has said social distancing is paramount to killing the coronavirus — and restoring freedom to work and operate a motorboat.

Some of those protesters carried signs painting a governor who has opposed socializing the health care system as a fascist. Others waved Confederate flags and signs of support for President Donald Trump's re-election.

From social media, it looked like a Trump rally — with a few guys wearing N95 masks and open-carrying rifles on the Capitol lawn.

But most were not wearing masks.

"That's how COVID-19 spreads," Whitmer said at a late afternoon news conference. "The sad irony here is the protest was that they don't like being in this stay at home order and they may have just created a need to lengthen it."

The protest traffic jam blocked at least two ambulances trying to traverse Lansing city streets and forced the Capital Area Transportation Authority to cancel dial-a-ride bus service for "life-sustaining and medically necessary trips to or from" the downtown Lansing area, according to a notice.

The protest on Day 22 of Whitmer's lockdown of daily life came as Michigan recorded 153 more deaths and 1,058 new cases of COVID-19, the pathogen that has turned the state's best economy in a generation into a line of 1 million people out of work.

In normal times, Wednesday would have attracted a Tax Day protest at the Capitol of government taking and spending. But on this Tax Day, in which many people who e-file with the IRS woke up to a $1,200-per-adult economic stimulus check in their bank account, the ire was aimed at Whitmer and not Uncle Sam.

As the vehicles clogged downtown Lansing streets, Whitmer's allies went on the offensive with a curiously timed news release highlighting new support for Whitmer's extended stay-home order from health care experts.

"There is no question the governor's order and response by Michiganders has slowed the spread of COVID-19, allowing hospitals like ours the ability to maintain much-needed capacity to care for sick patients," Paula Autry, president and CEO of Henry Ford Allegiance Health in Jackson, said in the release.



It's probably not a coincidence that Henry Ford Allegiance Health is one of the biggest private-sector employers in Jackson County, home of Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake.

Shirkey has been stoking the resistance to Whitmer's stay-at-home order, arguing there are safe ways for some businesses to return to work without risking a second wave of COVID-19 infections, which have started to level off.

And now the head of his hometown hospital is crediting Whitmer's strategy for saving the lives of Shirkey's constituents.

Shirkey, a businessman with a manufacturing business that's still at work making essential tools and equipment, in recent days has taken exception with Whitmer's broad labels of what's "essential" or "nonessential" work.

Jamie Brown, a critical care nurse and president of the Michigan Nurses Association, hit back on this argument in the news release from Whitmer's allies.



"Michigan cannot 'flatten the curve' and stop loss of life until people consistently stay home," Brown said in a statement. "People — including nurses and other health care workers — continue to die in our state and a key part of stopping these tragedies is non-essential workers staying home, period."

That message is just no longer sinking in outstate as Republicans see a Democratic governor who is still very inclined to have a political fight even when she's trying to emphasize facts and science.

On Monday, Whitmer invited more political confrontation with Republicans during the pandemic. She accused the DeVos family of funding the Michigan Conservative Coalition group that organized Wednesday's "Operation Gridlock."

"I think it's really inappropriate for a sitting member of the United States president's Cabinet to be waging political attacks on any governor, but obviously me here at home," Whitmer said of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

The DeVos-founded Michigan Freedom Fund spent $250 in Facebook advertising promoting the event, according to the group's executive director.

The governor clung to the Facebook event listing as evidence of DeVos interference in her governing. Some of her own allies winced at Whitmer starting an unnecessary political fight with the DeVos clan.

Betsy DeVos' husband joined the fray Wednesday.

Dick DeVos, the West Michigan businessman and financier of Republican politics, argued ahead of the rally that Whitmer has prescribed "the wrong medicine" for locking down the state economy during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

"And that wrong medicine is leading to side effects," DeVos said Wednesday morning on the Paul W. Smith Show on WJR 760 AM. "The wrong medicine to a lot of people in Michigan ... is isolation, fear, anxiety, depression, purposelessness and economic pressures."

DeVos is not wrong that the anxiety has ratcheted up in recent weeks as the lockdown drags on, and the economic impact is immense for many people. But his only answer for stemming the tide of death and infections overrunning the state's health care system seems to be placing "very focused attention" on just Southeast Michigan. That ignores the scientific possibility that the protest his political operation cheered on just served as a biological launch pad for vectors to spread the virus deeper into West Michigan.

"We know this demonstration is going to come at a cost to people's health," Whitmer said. "... I'm not predicting that a certain percentage of people get sick. But I know that just by congregating, they've made that a real possibility, that they've endangered other people's lives."

Perhaps we'll find out in seven to 10 days if rural parts of the state start seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases. If that happens, luckily there's more ventilators on the way.

Although ventilator use has been declining over the past week — a positive sign for hospitals that the worst may be behind us — Whitmer's office said 50 new ventilators were arriving Wednesday on loan from California. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also said Wednesday that he's sending 100 ventilators to Michigan.

Even with more than 1,700 unused ventilators in Michigan as of Tuesday night, the continued acquisition of the life-sustaining machines suggests the Great Lakes State is not out of the woods yet.