Cases up by 1,586; 22 more deaths reported

U-M students told to hunker down

With Big Ten football set to start on Friday and the Michigan Wolverines hoping to playing its opener in Minnesota on Saturday evening, Washtenaw County is seeing a continued rise in COVID-19 cases.

The state reported Tuesday an additional 1,586 cases of the disease in Michigan, pushing the total number of confirmed cases to 149,392.

Another 22 deaths have been tied to the coronavirus as well, with one of those identified through vital record reviews. Deaths from confirmed cases stood at 7,053 on Tuesday.

Many students at U-M in Ann Arbor, though, will be taking their classes virtually in the immediate future after the Washtenaw County Health Department issued a stay-at-home order Tuesday that will last for 14 days.

“The university supports the order,” reads a statement on the university website. “The county issued the order because the number of COVID-19 cases among U-M students is increasing and represents more than 60 percent of county cases.”

On Tuesday, Washtenaw County added 79 cases, having added 497 cases in the past week. Daily new cases there had been down into the 20s and 30s in early October after having risen in September after the college

school year had started.

The county reported that most of the new infections are found to come from social gatherings.

The stay-in-place order does allow some activities, such as going to class, voting, getting food, working or volunteering at a polling place, attending religious service, visiting a doctor, or meeting other basic needs.

The update Tuesday came as the worldwide caseload topped 40.6 million with 1.12 million people killed, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The United States had more than 8.2 million cases with nearly 221,000 deaths.

Michigan ranked 18th in the nation in cases again, sitting between South Carolina and Missouri.

In Michigan, including probable cases, the state has had a total of 165,994 cases and 7,383 deaths.

October continued see increased caseloads.

So far in the month, there have been 24,696 confirmed cases, and the current seven-day average stood at 1,669 cases.

A reminder about flu shots

Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, chief medical executive at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, reinforced the need for people to get their flu shots.

“With flu season coinciding with the possibility of a surge of COVID-19 cases, it’s important to make it as easy as possible for residents to get their flu shots,” Dr. Khaldun said on Twitter, sharing efforts by the MDHHS to improveMedicaid enrollees’ access to the flu vaccine.

Local trends

Oakland County added the most cases on Tuesday, with 189 new infections reported to push the total to 18,872.

Wayne County, excluding Detroit, added 159 cases to reach 20,557.

Macomb County added 127 cases to hit 16,274.

And Detroit added just 34 to reach 15,027.

Just to the north, Genesee County added 72 cases and topped 300 deaths with three new deaths reported.

In westernMichigan, 147 cases were reported to push their total to 11,909.

In mid-Michigan, Isabella County added just five cases to reach 829; however, Gratiot County added eight cases to 356. Clare County added four to reach 200 cases confirmed. Just to the east, Saginaw County added 30 cases to reach 3,258.

In Ingham County, 23 cases were added to reach 4,262 cases.

Michigan State’s football season has been slated to start at noon Saturday, hosting Rutgers in East Lansing.