As new, reported cases continue to decline, there are 10 Michigan counties, down from 14 last week, at a high COVID-19 level. That means people in those areas should wear masks while indoors and in public, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The counties include: Baraga, Marquette and Delta counties in the Upper Peninsula; Kalkaska County in northern Michigan; Gratiot County in mid-Michigan; and Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Wayne and Monroe counties in southeastern Michigan.
Added to the list this week were Delta, Baraga and Gratiot counties. Alger, Mackinac and Schoolcraft counties in the U.P.; Manistee and Cheboygan counties in the northern Lower Peninsula; Livingston County in the southeast; and Calhoun County in southern Michigan are no longer orange.
Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne counties have been orange for four straight weeks. However, new confirmed cases in those counties decreased this week by 18% or more.
RELATED: Washtenaw, Oakland, Wayne see big case drop: Michigan COVID data for Thursday, June 2
Thirty-four counties are green and the remaining 39 are yellow. Last week, West Michigan was mostly green. This week, Muskegon County and counties to the north along the lakeshore are yellow.
It is only at the high level orange that the CDC recommends universal masking while indoors and in public.
However, people with symptoms, a positive test or exposure to someone with COVID-19 should wear a mask regardless of where they live, the CDC says, and people at high risk of severe illness might need to take additional precautions when in high COVID-19 communities.
To see how the CDC assessed your county, check out the interactive map below. Tap on or hover over a county to see the underlying data.
Can’t see the map above? Click here.
After cases leapt to record levels in January, there was a drastic decline and the CDC relaxed its mask guidance in February, shifting from only looking at cases and positive tests to looking at cases and hospitalizations. The idea is to prevent severe disease and limit strain on hospitals.
A county is at a high level when there are more than 200 new cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days and 10 or more new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 people in the last week. (Not every county has a hospital, so each one is assigned a health services area, a geographic region that contains at least one hospital. Counties are attributed the metrics calculated for the entire area, weighted based on each county’s population.)
Michigan’s new, confirmed cases per day in the last week were down 25% Wednesday when compared to May 25.
The percentage of tests that are positive remains high. About 15% of tests were positive for SARS-CoV-2 from May 25 to June 1.
As of Wednesday, there were 972 adult and 26 pediatric patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19. Of them, 103 adults were in intensive care and 39 were on ventilators, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
On May 25, hospitals statewide were treating 1,037 adult and 35 pediatric patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19. Of them, 112 adults were in intensive care and 39 were on ventilators.
At earlier points in the pandemic, when hospitalizations reached more than 1,000, there were greater numbers of patients on ventilators and in intensive care, according to a weekly state COVID report. Michigan is now seeing the lowest percentage of hospitalized patients in the ICU or on ventilators since September 2020. The current omicron wave has not caused the same increases in critical and ventilated patients, the report states.
Cases were increasing in more than half the U.S. states this week, according to the New York Times, but the situation improved in the Northeast, worst in the nation for weeks, and the Midwest. Hawaii and Florida were leading all states in new per-capita cases in the last seven days. Alaska was No. 3, according to the Times data.
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