Tonight on The Detroit Evening Report, we cover Michigan’s new interactive Public Health Data Dashboard; the Detroit Department of Transportation’s upcoming public hearing on future service changes and more.

Subscribe to the Detroit Evening Report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Michigan’s new public health dashboard

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has launched a public health dashboard.

The Michigan Public Health Data Dashboard provides policymakers with data on public health trends, based on State House and Senate districts. The data is accessible to lawmakers, local officials, and advocacy groups for public health metrics. It includes health outcomes, such as mortality data, blood lead levels, and health behavior trends. It also has social and economic factors, physical environment trends, and clinical care trends such as prenatal care.

The metrics aim to offer a snapshot of how each district is doing in comparison to the statewide average. To check out the dashboard, visit michigan.gov/healthstatistics. 

DDOT to host public hearing

The Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) is hosting a public hearing at 5 p.m. Thursday, March 20, to gather feedback from residents about service changes that begin this summer.

Proposed changes — which go into effect June 22 — include route schedule changes along Grand River and Jefferson streets, among other routes. Several of the routes will expand service frequency, adding time slots throughout the day, while others will get shortened. 

The hybrid hearing will take place at the Rosa Parks Transit Center, 1310 Cass Ave., Detroit, and on Zoom.

House GOP to vote on tax rollback 

Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall says there will be a floor vote this week on a bill to roll back the state income tax rate. The measure would reduce the rate from 4.25% to 4.05%.

That’s where it was two years ago when high tax revenues triggered a law that reduced the income tax. Republicans argued the cut should have been permanent, but the state attorney general and the Treasury determined it was only good for a year. 

Hall says the bill being voted on this week will ensure that future automatic reductions are permanent. 

“And so what we’re going to do is we’re going to move to reverse the Democrat income tax hike and roll that back to 4.05% where it should be,” he said. “And, as you know, every small business and worker in Michigan pays the income tax and so this is going to really help them with the cost of living right now.”

Democrats say that would reduce revenue. They challenged Republicans to say what budget cuts they would make to pay for the lower income tax. 

–Reporting by Rick Pluta, Michigan Public Radio Network.

Severe Weather Awareness Week

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has declared this week Severe Weather Awareness Week. This comes after a severe weather over the weekend, with storms and tornadoes crossing several states.

The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DFIS) encourages Michigan residents to acquire insurance coverage for potentially severe weather conditions. They suggest residents review insurance coverage to check for flood insurance, take inventory of personal belongings, and gather emergency contacts.

They say securing important documents and protecting finances by having an emergency fund is also important. DFIS says people with property damage should report a claim, work to document and prevent further loss, and be wary of fraudulent contractors. For more information, visit Michigan.gov/DFIS.  

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

Michigan’s first confirmed case of measles this year was reported by the Oakland County Health Division on Thursday — marking the first case in the state since July 2024.

The infected adult had recently traveled overseas and their vaccination status is unknown, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).

Measles is a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease that is spread by direct person-to-person contact and through the air.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday its count of confirmed measles cases in the U.S. surpassed 2024, with cases reported in Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.

“Vaccination remains our best defense against measles and is highly efficient at protecting individuals and preventing outbreaks,” said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, MDHHS chief medical executive, in a statement. “This case of measles is a reminder of how easily this highly contagious disease can spread, particularly with international travel.”

Individuals who visited the following locations during these days/times, may have been exposed to measles:

• Kruse & Muer on Main at 327 S. Main Street in Rochester Friday, March 3 from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
• Henry Ford Rochester Hospital Emergency Department at 1101 W. University Drive in Rochester:
  • Saturday, March 8, from 3:40 a.m. to Sunday, March 9, at 9:32 a.m.
  • Tuesday, March 10, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Additional sites of possible exposure may be identified as more information becomes available.

Those who believe they could have been exposed to the virus should monitor for symptoms for at least 21 days after their potential exposure date. Individuals born in or before 1957 are considered immune, MDHHS said.

“If symptoms develop, do not visit your doctor or emergency room unless you call ahead so they can take precautions to prevent exposure to other individuals,” said Kate Guzmán, health officer for Oakland County.

Measles symptoms usually begin 7-14 days after exposure, and the virus can live for up to two hours in the air where an infected person coughed or sneezed. Symptoms may include:

• High fever (may spike to over 104°F)
• Cough
• Runny nose
• Red, watery eyes (conjunctivitis)
• Tiny white spots on the inner cheeks, gums and roof of mouth (Koplik Spots) 2-3 days after symptoms begin
• A rash that is red, raised, blotchy; usually starts on face, spreads to trunk, arms and legs 3-5 days after symptoms begin

The MMR vaccine is available through some health care providers, Oakland County Health Division offices in Southfield and Pontiac, and many pharmacies.

–Associated Press Health Writer Devi Shastri contributed to this report.

Some dairy farmworkers say they’re struggling to get basic resources like PPE, testing, and flu shots needed to protect themselves from possible bird flu infections, even after connecting with their local and state health department.

That’s according to the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC), which issued a press release Thursday describing recent situations in which they say workers tried to get testing, vaccines, and personal protective equipment, but ran into barriers and delays.

While the CDC says the risk of bird flu to the general public is still low, cases have been picking up speed in the past year, with 70 reported human cases in the U.S. so far, including one death. Dairy herds have been the source of infection in 41 of those cases, including two dairy farmworkers in Michigan in May.

In mid-January 2025, a group of 20 dairy farmworkers in the Upper Peninsula “reported being sick with flu-like symptoms,” according to the MIRC release. “The illness spread quickly among the workers.”

On January 22, the local health department (MIRC staff attorneys declined to say which health department, to protect the identity of the workers) said “they did not have H5N1 PPE, tests, treatments, or vaccines readily available, nor do they have the staff and language resources needed to communicate effectively with this vulnerable workforce,” the release said.

“They didn’t have free flu vaccines, and these workers couldn’t afford to pay for flu vaccines,” said Anna Hill Galendez, managing attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.

Seasonal flu vaccines don’t protect against avian influenza, but they’re highly recommended for people with exposure to potentially infected animals, because a co-infection of human seasonal flu and avian flu could theoretically result in a mutation of avian flu that’s better adapted to spreading between humans. (In July, the CDC said it would spend $10 million on preventing bird flu infection in farmworkers, including $5 million for providing seasonal flu shots, Reuters reported.)

The local health department did eventually provide paper masks and COVID testing, and it took about two weeks “before they were able to get access to seven avian flu tests, which wasn’t going to be enough for all of those workers,” Hill Galendez said.

The health department also arranged a testing site for workers, but there was a miscommunication, she said, and the farmworkers weren’t sure whether their employer would allow them to attend.

“Dairy farmworkers often work 12-hour shifts, six or seven days a week,” she said. “There’s a lot of concern for many workers about missing work, for fear of being fired. And so they’re often looking to their employer to facilitate access to these resources, or to feel like they’re being given permission to access these kind of resources. And so it can be really hard to figure out how to get these resources to dairy workers in a way that they can actually take advantage of them. So in this situation, that communication didn’t work out in a way that allowed them to actually get access to that testing.”

An MDHHS spokesperson said it “quickly responded to reports of farmworkers in the Upper Peninsula with symptoms consistent with respiratory illnesses like influenza. To protect their health and safety, MDHHS worked with the farmworkers’ local health department (LHD) to make resources available including translation services, influenza testing, influenza vaccination and personal protective equipment (PPE).”

But MIRC said it took a month for the farmworkers to eventually get PPE. It also provided a written statement from an unnamed U.P. farm worker:

“The reason for sharing what I’m going to say is that we’re workers on a farm and we’ve been affected by a flu/virus, a cough that none of us has been able to avoid,” the statement said in part. “We spent one or two days in bed suffering from a fever and sore throat…We hope that through this communication, there can be protective equipment for the other ranches, since we’ve already gotten PPE at the ranch where we are working…If the protective equipment had arrived faster, we might not all have gotten sick.”

Milk testing and flu shots 

The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) “did go out to test either the farm’s cows or milk within about two weeks of the first reported illness,” Hill Galendez, the MIRC attorney, said. “We weren’t aware of that testing at the time, but later learned that that took place and those tests came back negative.”

A spokesperson for MDARD said the agency “has tested bulk milk on all dairy farms in the U.P. and all have been negative for HPAI.”

CDC guidance recommends testing symptomatic people who’ve been exposed to infected animals, the MDHHS spokesperson said via email Thursday.

“Recent bulk milk testing at Upper Peninsula dairy farms by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) was negative for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), which meant exposure to animals sick with HPAI was not suspected among these farmworkers. MDHHS and the LHD made the decision to offer seasonal influenza testing to these workers, as their illnesses occurred at a time when there was extremely high respiratory virus activity, including seasonal influenza.”

But to date, those U.P. farmworkers still haven’t received their seasonal flu shots, Hill Galendez said. “The emphasis is over and over again on animal health, over human health. And so we see that focus again on the health of animals and consumer safety, over workers and protecting workers.”

The MDHHS spokesperson said seasonal flu shots were offered to the workers, but “I do not believe they took us/the LHD [local health department] up on the offer.”

Getting vaccines to farmworkers 

MIRC also described a dairy worker in Barry County “who noticed her co-workers were sick and wanted to avoid contracting the illness,” and reached out “to the local health clinic [but] was told they didn’t have the avian flu vaccine.” That same worker then contacted her local health department, but staff there didn’t speak Spanish.

An MDHHS outreach worker was able to assist her in communicating with that health department a few days later, but the worker was “disappointed” to learn that avian flu vaccines aren’t currently available in the U.S. (Some countries like Finland have been offering them to farmworkers.)

“It’s important to recognize that there are workers that are looking for these protections and we could be making them available, but we aren’t,” Hill Galendez said. “Dairy workers that understand their risks really [and] are looking for protection for themselves.”

(Last week, Bloomberg News reported the Trump administration has paused a $590 million contract the Biden administration made with Moderna for bird flu shots. It also canceled a key FDA meeting about which strains of flu to target in next year’s flu shot.)

The Barry-Eaton County District Health Department said it was contacted by several farms and farmworkers last year, “and was able to quickly fulfill all PPE requests. However, BEDHD has not been contacted by any farm owners or workers since June 2024.”

And while the department isn’t allocated adult seasonal flu vaccines, they can administer them if a farmworker is unable to get one at a local pharmacy or health care provider. The department also said it can provide flu testing and the flu medication, Tamiflu, for symptomatic farmworkers from farms where highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has been detected.

Asked about how many farmworkers have received seasonal flu vaccines at MDHHS outreach events for farmworkers, a department spokesperson didn’t specify, but said it is working with several partners, including “a CDC project specifically to increase seasonal influenza vaccine coverage in dairy and poultry workers in several Michigan counties…As part of this, we have run some local events where we have administered doses of flu vaccine.”

Farmworkers are especially vulnerable right now, Hill Galendez said, and their employers often aren’t offering the recommended PPE. The challenges of reaching dairy farmworkers means it’s more important than ever to offer mobile testing and flu vaccine clinics, and proactively distribute PPE directly to workers, she said.

“That would all go a long way to make sure that dairy workers actually get access to these resources.”

A backyard poultry farm in Monroe County is the latest Michigan flock hit by the highly pathogenic Avian influenza. 

Hundreds of thousands of turkeys at a commercial farm in Ottawa County had to be euthanized at the end of last year because of the bird flu outbreak. 

But the disease isn’t only affecting turkeys and chickens. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources estimates the virus has killed more than 300 wild birds in five counties since Jan. 1, 2025.

Mitch Marcus, a wildlife health supervisor at the DNR, says the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is also affecting waterfowl and birds of prey.

“Think ducks, geese, swans,” he said. “Also scavenging birds and raptors, so think eagles and owls.”

People who found dead birds in the wild alerted the DNR. Marcus says scientists at Michigan State University’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab test tissue samples for the virus.

“If HPAI is suspect from those results, the samples get sent on to the national vet services laboratory for confirmation,” he said.

The DNR encourages people who find at least six dead birds in one area to report the discovery through its “eyes in the field” tool.

Marcus says it’s best to avoid direct contact with a dead bird in the wild. If someone finds one on their property, he recommends caution.

“If they’re in a situation where they have to get that carcass removed, I would suggest that they utilize some personal protective equipment,” he said.

Read more: Avian flu outbreak forces major layoffs at Michigan’s largest poultry farm

The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development also offers advice for pet owners concerned about bird flu.

“A good general precaution is just keep your pets away from any sick or dead wild animals,” Marcus said.

The DNR says HPAI has infected some feral and domestic cats in the U.S., but so far, it has not affected dogs.

The state has detected the virus at large commercial poultry farms in western Michigan as well as backyard flocks in Wayne, Oakland, and Monroe counties.