COVID deaths trend younger in 2021

Disease was area’s third-leading cause of death for second year in a row

The delta variant of the SARSCOV-2 virus prompted a yearending steady increase in the number of COVID-19 deaths and shifted the profile of those who died from the old and sick to the young and healthy.

It also means the disease will go down as the third-leading cause of death for the second year in a row across Isabella, Gratiot and Clare counties.

Across the three counties, 258 deaths to the disease are so far attributed to COVID-19, including 106 in Isabella County, 84 in Clare County and 64 in Gratiot

County. Those numbers are preliminary and could increase over the next few weeks as death certificates continue to get filed with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

It’s a 52 percent increase over 2020 when 170 deaths across the three counties were reported.

Based on cumulative data available on the MDHHS’ COVID-19 dashboard, all three counties shared a steady increase in the number of deaths that coincided with the arrival of delta, a more transmissible variant believed linked to more serious cases of disease.

When delta arrived in late August, it also changed the profile of those who died from COVID-19. Up until that point, the disease preyed primarily on very sick elderly people. The people who died from delta were younger and healthier.

It was a vast shift in the death profile, said Dr. Brittany Harrington, an internal medicine trained physician with Mymichigan

Health-alma.

“Patients a lot younger, a lot healthier are dying,” she said.

Data from Central Michigan District Health Department backs that up. Prior to September, nearly all deaths involved elderly people. After September, it was common for CMDHD to report that middle-aged people died.

They were also for the most part unvaccinated, Harrington said.

Younger patients who survive the disease often face a long, difficult road recovering from the disease, she said. Many face months weaning off oxygen tanks and others face problems related to their hearts and clotting. The clotting has caused amputations of fingers and toes and has elevated the risk of stroke in some survivors.

The age of people who died decreased because delta proved more lethal to people who hadn’t gotten vaccinated and because people in higher age groups had higher percentages of people who received the shots, said Kari Wallis, an infection control specialist with Mymichigan Health.

Of 48 COVID-19 deaths handled during the last three months of 2021 from Isabella, Gratiot and Montcalm counties, only eight of them were fully vaccinated, she said.

All of them were elderly people with significant health challenges.

The other 40 included people ranging in age from 38 into their 50s, in addition to unvaccinated elderly people, Wallis said.

Vaccination status was the only reliable determining factor on whose illness was mild and whose illness might progress, Harrington said. People admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 and fully vaccinated were also less severely ill.

At the Clare medical center, 13 COVID deaths were handled during the last three months of 2021, Wallis said. They ranged in age from 46-83.

Those numbers only include people admitted to the medical center for treatment, Wallis said. Anecdotally, there was an increase in the number of people who died from COVID-19

at home after waiting too long to get treatment for the disease.

In Isabella and Clare counties, the number of COVID deaths is much higher than what they were during 2020. State COVID records show 49 disease deaths in 2020 in Isabella County, 46 in Clare County and 85 in Gratiot County.

MDHHS mortality data shows fewer COVID-19 deaths in all three counties: 34 in Isabella County, 42 in Clare County and 54 in Gratiot County.

Throughout 2020, COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in all three counties, topped only by heart disease and cancer. It appears that COVID-19 will go down as the third-leading cause of death in all three counties for 2021.

What is normally the third-leading cause of death is chronic respiratory disease. In 2020, 30 people died of it in Clare County, 26 in Gratiot County and 30 in Isabella County.