If you don't think there was a need for a second shutdown, just ask an area hospital. A hospital has been reopened in Muskegon to help in the new COVID-19 case spike.

According to FOX 17, Mercy Health in Muskegon currently has 150 patients battling COVID-19 and it is putting a serious strain on their staff so they have decided to reopen the old Hackley hospital to help in the interim.

So, in a normal situation we wouldn't have any issues whatsoever with taking care of the physicians at Muskegon County and the Mercy campus, but having consolidated and having Hackley hospital available does give us a unique opportunity to reactivate it for a short period of time to get through what is a once-in-a-100-year pandemic.

While hospitals are beginning to struggle all throughout the area, I sure hope that people take this new temporary shutdown seriously to get these coronavirus numbers down to a more manageable level so area hospitals and medical officials can get a handle on this surge before it gets even worse.

Michigan as a state is now surpassing the number of cases that we had back in March and April and we're only on a pace for things to worsen if we all don't hit the pause button for a while.

This current generation of Americans seem to have trouble with the concept of sacrifice. Our state and country has had it so good for so long, many people just don't understand making decisions that take them out of their normal life.

With one of the busiest travel weeks of the year coming next week the Thanksgiving holiday, people are going to have to make a decision that keeps them in smaller groups for the greater good of us all.

We should all take a look back at history to the greatest generation back around World War II and the sacrifices people made for the greater good of Americans. We need to learn from that and act on that now.

The signs are here now - hospitals maxed out, employees maxed out to the point that closed hospitals are having to be reopened to meet the demand of beds needed to fight the virus.

Let's help our hospitals, their employees, our friends, our neighbors, our family and ourselves and do the right things. Follow the guidelines the health department have provided. Stay home and in small groups. Forget about politics and do the right thing or we will never get out of this mess we are all in. If we don't do this now, vaccines will be useless because in order for them to work, we all have to follow the safety guidelines provided by the CDC.

Here are some tips for self-care during the pandemic:

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