Michigan has five counties at a high COVID-19 Community Level this week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from Thursday, Dec. 29.
The five counties are: Marquette, Delta, Alger, Schoolcraft and Luce counties – all in the Upper Peninsula. Michigan hasn’t had that many counties at a high COVID level since September.
The CDC uses Community Levels to determine COVID risk, putting counties in one of three buckets: low (green), medium (yellow) or high (orange).
The CDC recommends masking indoors in public while in counties at a high Community Level, regardless of vaccination status. However, people with symptoms, a positive test or exposure to COVID-19 should still wear a mask regardless of the county, the CDC says.
Michigan has 33 counties at a medium level this week and 45 counties at a low level.
Last week, Michigan had two counties at a high level, 45 at a medium level and 36 at a low level.
The CDC considers cases and hospitalizations when determining COVID risk for an area. The goal is to prevent severe disease and limit strain on hospitals.
For Community Levels, the CDC looks at three factors: the percentage of staffed hospital beds occupied by COVID patients, COVID hospital admissions per capita and COVID cases per capita.
A county is at a high level when there are 200-plus new cases per 100,000 in the past week and either (A) 10-plus new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 or (B) when at least 10% of the staffed inpatient beds are occupied by COVID patients.
If hospitalizations are particularly high, even a county with low cases can be at a high level, per the CDC formula.
(Not every county has a hospital, so each is assigned a health services area, a larger region that contains at least one hospital. Counties are attributed the metrics for the entire area, weighted based on each county’s population. For example: Monroe County’s health services area also includes the Toledo, Ohio area.)
Here’s more on the latest COVID-19 trends in Michigan.
Michigan is reporting 1,243 new, confirmed cases per day in the past week
There were 1,243 new, confirmed COVID cases reported per day in Michigan this week. That’s down 21.4% compared to the week prior.
Cases often tick down during holiday weeks and pick up during the weeks after. COVID cases had been on the rise for four weeks in a row, until this week.
Michigan also reported 318 “probable” COVID cases per day this week.
Cases are “confirmed” when there’s a positive result from an NAAT/RT-PCR test. Cases are “probable” when there’s a reported antigen (rapid) test or if somebody has symptoms and was exposed to a person with COVID-19.
All graphics in this story except the initial one (which uses CDC case calculations) are based only on “confirmed” numbers.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reports COVID cases once per week. The department announced 10,927 confirmed and probable cases this week.
Michigan has reported nearly 2.6 million confirmed COVID cases and nearly 417,000 probable cases since the pandemic began.
The chart below shows the seven-day average for new, confirmed COVID cases throughout the pandemic.
(Can’t see the chart? Click here.)
Michigan ranks 21st in the U.S. in new cases per capita
Michigan had the 21st-most COVID-19 cases per capita in the past week among all U.S. states, per the New York Times.
States with the highest COVID rates this week were New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Kentucky and Rhode Island. States with the lowest COVID rates were Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota, Vermont and Idaho.
For COVID hospitalizations, Michigan had the 14th-most per capita this week. For COVID deaths, Michigan had the 11th-most per capita.
Hospitals treating 1,359 confirmed or suspected adult COVID-19 patients
Adult COVID hospitalizations are at their highest point in 10 months in Michigan. There were 1,359 adults in Michigan hospitals with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 as of Wednesday, Dec. 28.
That’s up 2.5% from last week.
Hospitalization totals are still much lower than January, when they topped 4,000 during many weeks of the initial omicron surge.
Among the 1,359 adults with COVID in hospitals on Wednesday, 166 were in intensive care and 84 were on a ventilator.
Michigan also had 38 children hospitalized with confirmed/suspected COVID, as of Wednesday.
Michigan is reporting 13 new COVID deaths per day in the past week
In the past week, Michigan has averaged 13 COVID deaths per day. That’s down slightly from 14 per day last week.
During omicron’s peak in January, Michigan was averaging more than 100 COVID deaths per day.
Michigan has had 36,929 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 3,838 probable COVID deaths since the pandemic began. Put another way, roughly one in every 272 Michigan residents have died from confirmed COVID.
Below is a chart illustrating the seven-day average for reported deaths throughout the pandemic.
(Can’t see the chart? Click here.)
For more statewide data, visit MLive’s coronavirus data page.
To find a testing site near you, check out the state’s online test find send an email to COVID19@michigan.gov, or call 888-535-6136 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.
If you have any COVID-19 questions, please submit them to covidquestions@mlive.com to be considered for future MLive reporting.
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