Virus surging in Midwest as states expand booster shots
A surge in cases in the Upper Midwest has some Michigan schools keeping students at home ahead of Thanksgiving and the military sending medical teams to Minnesota to relieve hospital staffs overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.
The worsening outlook in the Midwest comes as boosters are being made available to everyone in a number of locations. Massachusetts and Utah became the latest to say anyone 18 or older can roll up a sleeve for a booster shots, and an advisory committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is meeting Friday to discuss expanding boosters.
Cold weather states are dominating the fresh wave of cases over the last seven days, including New Hampshire, North Dakota and Wisconsin, according to federal data. But the Southwest had trouble spots, too, with more than 90% of inpatient hospital beds occupied in Arizona.
In Detroit, where only 35% of eligible residents were fully vaccinated, the school district said it would switch to online learning on Fridays in December because of rising COVID19 cases, a need to clean buildings and a timeout for “mental health relief.”
Detroit health officer Denise Fair Razo said new cases have skyrocketed in the city in the last 14 days to 3,858, compared to 2,322 in the previous two-week period.
“We’re in Michigan so we’re not finding ourselves spending time outdoors in flip-flops and tank tops,” Fair Razo said. “We are indoors and we’re frankly becoming a little bit too relaxed. We’re no longer wearing our masks. We’re no longer washing our hands as frequently as we should. But we know these precautions.”
Elsewhere in Michigan, some schools are taking next week off for the Thanksgiving holiday instead of just three days.
In Minnesota, the U.S. Defense Department will send two 22-member medical teams to Hennepin County Medical Center and St. Cloud Hospital next week to treat patients and assist weary health care workers.
“I need Minnesotans to recognize, as we’ve been saying, this is a dangerous time,” Gov. Tim Walz said in pushing vaccinations.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott is calling legislators into a special session next week to pass a bill giving local governments the power to adopt temporary mask mandates. He has been opposed to a statewide mask order even as Vermont’s new daily cases approach numbers not seen since the earliest days of the pandemic.
The U.S. is averaging nearly 87,000 new cases per day, up from 72,000 two weeks ago, and hospitalizations are starting to increase after steadily falling since the peak of the summer delta variant surge. The country is averaging more than 1,100 deaths a day, and the number of Americans to die from COVID-19 is at 768,000.
About 59% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, or about 195 million Americans. Officials are urging more people to get vaccinated, especially the 60 million people who have yet to receive a first dose.