CMU cases continue to push up numbers

Another nine confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported within the CMU community on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Clare and Gratiot counties continue to have some of the lowest rates of disease spread in the state.

The nine cases the university reported on Tuesday were slated for Monday, but cover both Sunday and Monday. CMU doesn’t report new confirmed cases on Sunday.

After a very quiet start to the semester, the number of cases of COVID on campus grew last week. On March 15, the seven-day average for new cases was 1.15. As of Tuesday, that number had risen to 4.85.

An additional 11 cases were reported in Isabella County on Tuesday by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for a cumulative total of 3,731, with 75 deaths.

Applying CMU’S rolling seven-day average to Tuesday’s new cases, it is likely that just under half of those cases will be from the university community.

National media outlets have given significant coverage to the potential for additional COVID-19 spread due to Spring Break. CMU

canceled its Spring Break in lieu of several Wellness days sprinkled throughout the spring semester.

The idea was to prevent students from traveling on Spring Break and bringing the disease back to campus.

Gratiot and Clare counties, by contrast, continue to have some of the lowest rates of spread in Michigan.

Both have new sevenday averages of confirmed and probable cases of less than 10 per 100,000 people, based on Sunday’s data.

The data is available on a county-level dashboard hosted by the Brown University School of Public Health.

Gratiot’s average is 9.8 and Clare’s is 6.0. Both are in the dashboard’s secondlowest category for risk. It’s referred to as Community Spread and on the dashboard’s accompanying map they are colorcoded as yellow.

Isabella County’s average is 17.0, which is in the second-highest category for spread. That is called Accelerated Spread and those locations are color-coded orange on the map.

Michigan’s seven-day average has increased to 30.4, the category for the highest rate of spread. Michigan’s seven-day average is the third highest in the United States.

An additional three confirmed cases were reported in Gratiot County on Tuesday, for a cumulative total of 2,498, with 100 deaths. An additional six cases were reported in Clare County on Tuesday, for a cumulative total of 1,435, with 68 deaths.

Elsewhere in mid-michigan, no new deaths were reported, with new and cumulative cases and deaths as follows:

• In Gladwin County, eight new confirmed cases were reported for a cumulative total of 1,314, with 40 deaths;

• In Mecosta County, four additional cases were reported for a cumulative total of 2,011, with 21 deaths;

• In Midland County, an additional 21 new cases were reported for a cumulative total of 4,763, with 63 deaths; and,

• In Montcalm County, an additional 21 cases were reported for a cumulative total of 3,416, with 88 deaths.

Statewide, 16 new deaths were reported for a total of 15,919 and another 3,579 cases were reported for a cumulative total of 633,919.

Of the 16 deaths, eight were discovered during a routine review of death certificates.