While the majority of the country is seeing coronavirus infections wane, Michigan is seeing a large surge that is becoming hard to ignore. As of yesterday, seven of the top ten cities in the nation for COVID infection rates were in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s state.

But it’s who Whitmer is trying to blame that is raising the most eyebrows. Apparently, this is all Ron DeSantis’ fault because Florida had spring break and doesn’t have a mask mandate. For context, the border of Michigan stands about 1200 miles away from Florida’s nearest boundary.

This per Florida Politics.

Florida and Michigan have reported the highest and second-highest number of cases of a more contagious variant that was first identified in the U.K. Michigan had the United States’ worst infection rate in the past two weeks.

“Yes, I am concerned” about travel between the states, the governor told reporters while attending the opening of a large-scale vaccination site in Oakland County. “It’s a concern no matter what. That’s why we are really encouraging people to get vaccinated.”

She urged people returning from Florida to work from home and have their kids learn virtually for at least a week. She and health officials later recommended that people get tested after in-state, out-of-state or international travel.

Notice the obsession with “variants” here. That’s actually irrelevant when comparing Michigan to Florida. Michigan isn’t just seeing a surge in a certain variant, and to be clear, the current vaccines protect against B117. Rather, Michigan is seeing a surge in total COVID infections. In fact, they lead the nation in that category right now. Meanwhile, Florida is holding relatively steady in infections and hospitalizations despite never having a mask mandate and not having any lockdown measures in effect for the vast majority of the pandemic.

In other words, the focus on travel between states and “variants” is a red herring. It’s a “hey, look a squirrel” distraction technique to obfuscate from the fact that Whitmer has done a terrible job managing the pandemic. You can’t blame different variants of the virus and state-to-state travel for a single state surge when those variants exist in other states at high levels, yet the overall infections remain low in those places. The virus does not know the difference between a Michigan and Florida resident. It can’t just infect spring-breakers going back to Whitmer’s state while choosing not to surge in spring-breakers who remain in Florida (Florida’s 7-day average is up only about 400 infections right now, in no way constituting a state-wide surge). That’s not how any of this works. You also can’t blame “pandemic fatigue” given that other states have far less mitigation in place right now but aren’t seeing surges.

What you can blame is the misuse of lockdowns and a botched vaccine roll-out that has prevented Michigan from more safely reaching a level of herd immunity that other states appear to have reached. What’s becoming clear is that states that took the reins off and didn’t freak out about younger populations getting the virus while prioritizing the elderly for the vaccine are now repeating the benefits. In short, Michigan appears to be months behind the recovery curve, and that’s ultimately going to cost more lives and has already done so.

But no worries, 60 Minutes is hot on the case of Ron DeSantis being extremely effective and vaccinating more seniors than any other state in the union. Meanwhile, Whitmer’s state continues to burn to the ground under her pathetic leadership and the media can’t muster any interest. Weird, right?