DRAMATIC RISE
Gratiot sees single biggest daily jump in COVID-19 cases
Gratiot County saw a dramatic rise in its number of confirmed COVID-19 cases from Thursday to Friday, increasing from 13 to 21. One person there has died of the disease.
At the same time, Midland County surpassed Isabella County as having the most cases in midmichigan, increasing by two to 61. Isabella’s total was revised downward one to 60. Isabella still has the most deaths around the region at seven. Midland has five.
Statewide, 977 new cases were announced and 77 deaths for a total of 42,356 cases and 3,866 deaths.
Big spikes in cases in rural counties are often attributed to an outbreak in a nursing home, but data available from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t at this time suggest that.
Two cases were identified earlier this week at the Riverside Healthcare Center in St. Louis. As of the 3 p.m. daily update on Friday, there were still only two cases listed there.
Across the rest of mid-michigan, Gladwin increased by one case to 16, with one death. Clare, with 11 cases and one death; Mecosta, with 14 cases and one death; and Montcalm with 40 cases and one death, all remained unchanged.
Statewide, the outbreak in southeast Michigan continues to show signs of softening. Early in the crisis, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said that the models she was working from showed that as that happened, that new parts of the state would become hotspots.
Genesee, Saginaw and Bay counties followed southeast Michigan, and the focus is now on West Michigan and in particular Kent County.
During a Thursday press conference, the state’s chief medical executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun said that in the last week, cases have increased 40 percent there.
Overnight, the cases in Kent County jumped by another 121 to 1,600. Another three people died there for a total of 36.
Part of the dramatic rise, however is attributable to an increase in testing. On Wednesday, 1,032 tests were reported across the counties of the West Michigan Regional Healthcare Consortium, the health care coalition to which Kent
County belongs.
Isabella, Clare, Mecosta and Montcalm counties are also coalition members.
The state reported a 10.4 positive result return. So far, the relationship between testing and positive results is pretty clear: The more testing that happens, the more cases are reported but ultimately the small the rate of positive returns.
Dr. Khaldun on Friday said both are good things, because they help the state figure out where the disease is, which is a critical step in helping bring it under control.
Age continues to play a predominate role as predicting who the disease kills, with upward revisions across a number of variables. Based on age group, 41 percent of people who die are older than 80, 69 percent are older than 70 and 88 percent are older than 60; with half of all deaths occurring in people older than 76. The average age of death increased by Friday to 74.9. It was 74.8 Thursday.
So far, the relationship between testing and positive results is pretty clear: The more testing that happens, the more cases are reported but ultimately the small the rate of positive returns.