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Slack.com slash DHQ. This time of year, Michiganders are used to feeling a sense of relief.

Can you tell me about like springtime in Michigan? Let me tell you about winter first, then

I'll tell you about spring.

Abdul al-Sahid is a lifelong Michigander, lives in Ann Arbor.

The worst month of winter is February. February is so oppressively cold. It's the kind

of thing where you go out and if your hair is what it freezes. Your fingers start to tingle

at the end because it's so oppressively cold. It doesn't get any brighter than just

white sky.

You get the picture here.

After you've put in the work of the winter, it just feels like you've earned your spring.

Abdul is an epidemiologist. He ran the Detroit Health Department a few years back. He says

this year when COVID rates started to fall and more and more vaccines started to be available.

It felt like the folks here had earned their spring in more ways than one.

I'm not going to lie. In early March, I felt really good about everything I was hearing

and seeing. Spring was on its way. We had a couple of really nice days. It felt really

good. I think when things started to level off in a real way and then tick up work, that's

when my feeling of optimism started to fade a little bit.

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