Author

Anna Gustafson

Anna Gustafson

Anna Gustafson is the assistant editor at Michigan Advance, where her beats include economic justice, health care and immigration. Previously the founder of the Muskegon Times and the editor at Rapid Growth Media in Grand Rapids, Anna has worked as an editor and reporter for news outlets across the country.

New constitutional amendment could nullify GOP-led efforts to restrict voting

By: - January 31, 2022

A new ballot initiative filed with the Michigan Secretary of State Monday could nullify Republican-led efforts to restrict voting and enshrine a series of voting rights — including barring partisan interference in future elections — in the state’s constitution, election experts said Monday. The “Promote the Vote 2022” ballot initiative would amend the state constitution […]

‘We can’t tell them to go live in a bubble’ 

By: - January 31, 2022

When Dr. Peter Gulick works with his patients who have HIV/AIDS, he always recommends they get the third COVID-19 vaccine shot that’s been available to immunocompromised individuals since August.  For the approximately 7 million people living with weakened immune systems living in the United States, that third shot has represented a chance to avoid becoming […]

10M free KN95 masks are now available to Michiganders, Whitmer announces

By: - January 27, 2022

Ten million free KN95 masks are now available to Michiganders as they continue to face the fast-spreading omicron variant of COVID-19, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Thursday.  The KN95 masks are better suited than loosely woven cloth coverings — such as the ones largely available at the beginning of the pandemic — to protect people from […]

State reports 27,423 new COVID-19 cases since Monday

By: - January 26, 2022

On Wednesday, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) reported that a total of 1,933,062 Michiganders have tested positive for COVID-19 and 29,605 have died from the virus — an additional 27,423 cases and 379 deaths since Monday. The new numbers combine Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s recorded cases and deaths, with an average of […]

Michigan has 6th-lowest nursing home staff vaccination rate in country, feds say

By: - January 21, 2022

As the deadline nears for health care workers to become vaccinated against COVID-19, Michigan still has a ways to go before its nursing home workers meet federal requirements. About 72% of nursing home workers in Michigan are fully vaccinated, according to the newest numbers from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The […]

Is this ‘the beginning of the end’ of Michigan’s 4th COVID surge?

By: - January 20, 2022

Updated 5:21 p.m., 1/20/22 with additional information about the omicron variant’s peak Every day, Dr. Russell Lampen braces himself for a report that comes to the infectious disease expert: the people who have died from COVID-19 at Spectrum Health in West Michigan. “It’s five to seven people every day,” said Lampen, the division chief of […]

Online orders for free at-home COVID tests to begin Jan. 19

By: and - January 14, 2022

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Friday launched a new website for Americans to request up to four free COVID-19 tests per household. The administration is buying 1 billion at-home rapid COVID-19 tests, and Americans will be able to begin ordering the tests online on Jan. 19 at COVIDtests.gov. This is part of the administration’s effort to […]

Michigan has 4,778 people hospitalized with COVID-19, with 502 on ventilators

By: - January 14, 2022

On Friday, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) reported that a total of 1,746,707 Michiganders have tested positive for COVID-19 and 28,479 have died from the virus — an additional 37,114 cases and 251 deaths since Wednesday. The new numbers combine Thursday’s and Friday’s recorded cases and deaths, with an average of […]

DHHS: More than 1 in 10 Michiganders had COVID-19 in 2021, 1 in 650 died

By: - January 12, 2022

More than one in 10 Michiganders had COVID-19 in 2021, and approximately one in 650 Michiganders died from COVID-19, according to information Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) reported Tuesday. DHHS reported Wednesday that a total of 1,709,593 Michiganders have tested positive for COVID-19 and 28,228 have died from the virus — an […]

Benton Harbor water crisis is the ‘ultimate inexcusable repeat of history,’ 3rd lawsuit says

By: - January 11, 2022

State officials’ decisions around the water crisis in Benton Harbor, including allegedly pushing off a corrosion control study, left “thousands of people to drink and use knowingly unsafe lead-contaminated water,” according to a new class-action lawsuit.  “It has been less than six years since the declaration of emergency that made the Flint water crisis worldwide […]

Police investigating ex-Speaker Lee Chatfield for allegedly sexually assaulting child

By: - January 7, 2022

Michigan State Police are investigating former state House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R-Levering) after a woman filed a criminal complaint accusing him of sexually assaulting her over 12 years, beginning when she was 14 or 15 years old, according to police and the complainant’s attorney. The now 26-year-old woman first filed the complaint with the Lansing […]

SE Michigan hospital at ‘breaking point’ in wake of skyrocketing omicron cases

By: - January 6, 2022

Soaring omicron variant cases among Beaumont Health staff and patients have left the Southeast Michigan health care system at a “breaking point,” said hospital officials who, for the umpteenth time this pandemic, pleaded with the public Thursday to get vaccinated against COVID-19.  “With each subsequent surge, I think the psychological toll gets greater and greater […]