State has largest single-day increase

New cases top 2K, the most since pandemic started

Michigan reported over 2,000 new confirmed cases due to coronavirus on Thursday, the largest singleday increase in new cases since the start of the pandemic, according to the state health department’s website,

The state saw 2,030 new cases and 32 new deaths due to the coronavirus on Thursday.

This means there are now 141,091 confirmed cases and 6,973 deaths in Michigan.

And, with 15,822 probable cases and 329 deaths, this now puts the state at 156,913 total cases and 7,302 deaths.

The state also said 21 of the 32 new deaths reported on Thursday were added from its regular reviews of death certificate data maintained in vital records reporting systems, which are conducted by Michigan Department of Health and Human Services staff three times per week.

The state noted in a press release that some of the numbers provided Thursday could have been on the Wednesday update, when more than 1,300 cases were reported, due to a system slowdown in submitting the testing results.

“Due to a slowdown in the reporting of electronic

laboratory results, the COVID-19 case count for Oct. 15 contains additional case referrals that could have been included in yesterday’s report,” the state reported, noting the higher case count on Thursday.

Worldwide context

Globally, the number of cases of COVID-19 topped 38.7 million with deaths at more than 1.09 million, according to data fromJohns Hopkins University.

And, in the United States, which still has the most cases and deaths worldwide, the caseload is more than 7.9 million and deaths were over 217,000.

Michigan has been ranked 10th in the nation for the number of deaths, between Georgia and Arizona, with New York as first, according to Johns Hopkins. The state ranked 18th in total cases, still between Wisconsin and Missouri.

According to The Associated Press on Wednesday, Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, Michigan chief medical executive, warned of a possible second wave of the virus, echoing other health experts who are wary the colder months will bring more cases.

Late on Wednesday night, she tweeted about the importance of maskwearing, hand-washing and social distancing, saying, “For now, wear a mask, keep your distance, get a flu shot. We will get through this.”

This seemed to echo Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who tweeted on Tuesday, “Practice social distancing. Wash your hands frequently. Mask up. We’ve come too far to lose all the progress we’ve made.”

Elsewhere in the world, European countries considered new lockdowns as infections surged, according to The Associated Press.

Averages and totals

The 7- day average on Thursday were 1,293 cases and 15 deaths added per day, and the 7-day totals for this week were 9,052 cases and 104 deaths.

The first half of October has seen 16,404 cases added from October 1-15, the highest number of total cases added in the first half of the month since July.

There were also 211 deaths confirmed during the same period, an average of about 1,093 cases and 14 deaths added per day.

July 1-15 had 7,327 cases, August 1-15 had 10,536 cases and September had 10,715 cases, in comparison.

This is an average of about 488 cases added per day for the first half of July, 702 cases per day for August and 714 cases per day for September.

The cases in the month of October echo back to what Michigan saw in April, except the number of deaths are much lower.

While cases have gone up throughout the summer, the number of deaths have not followed what happened in the spring, when the virus saw an early peak.