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Michigan State Senator Mike Shirkey said he plans to miss an annual state policy conference because of a vaccine requirement he calls "extreme."
Shirkey, the state Senate's Republican majority leader, has not been vaccinated against COVID-19, but says he has "natural immunity."
The Mackinac Policy Conference, run by the Detroit Regional Chamber, has said that for the 2021 season, vaccinations will be required to attend.
Shirkey said the Chamber "cowed to political science rather than embrac[ing] actual science" by mandating vaccines to attend the conference. He was making the point that he already had COVID-19 in December of 2020, and would presumably have some immunity without a vaccine, according to reporting by The Detroit Free Press.
Abby Walls, a spokesperson for the majority leader, pointed to a study suggesting some people who have had COVID-19 have some protection for up to 11 months.
A more recent study shared by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows that those who have had COVID-19 in the past are about "twice as likely to get infected again" if they are unvaccinated.
"If you have had COVID-19 before, please still get vaccinated," Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement last week.
Shirkey said that he'd understand requiring proof of vaccination if the conference were held in Canada, but not on U.S. soil.
"It should not be overlooked that this vaccine mandate position is more extreme than the policy of the Grand Hotel, the island's civic government and the state of Michigan as a whole," Shirkey said in a statement.
Shirkey has supported mask-wearing but has strongly come out opposing mask-mandates and vaccine mandates throughout the pandemic.
After Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued a statewide mask mandate last year, Shirkey came out against it on Twitter, saying "I do NOT support a statewide mask mandate. I do encourage everyone to honor whatever policies individual businesses, organizations and schools establish."
At the time, Whitmer responded by saying she was concerned that "the top Republican in Michigan government is an anti-masker and doesn't want to encourage or require everyone in Michigan to mask up."
His comments show "a real disdain for science and ignorance of the epidemiology we are up against," Whitmer said.
As of Tuesday, Michigan's total COVID-19 cases during the pandemic have reached 913,000, with the death toll hitting almost 20,000.
Newsweek reached out to Sen. Shirkey for comment but did not immediately hear back.
