New virus cases near 1,800 on Saturday

There were nearly 1,800 new confirmed coronavirus cases reported in Michigan on Saturday, according to the state’s website

The state saw 1,791 new cases and 23 new deaths due to the virus on Saturday.

This brought Michigan’s total number of cases to 144,897 and its total number of deaths to 7,010.

The state also said 15 of the 23 new deaths reported on Saturday 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 was delayed by at least two hours in updating its specific totals by county on Saturday; however, its overall numbers were updated by 3:30 p.m.

Worldwide outlook

Globally, the number of cases of COVID-19 neared 40 million on Saturday, with deaths at more than 1.1 million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

And, in the United States, which still has the most cases and deaths worldwide, the caseload is more than 8.09 million and deaths were over 219,000.

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.

On Friday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed Senate Bill 1108, which allowed city councils, school boards and other public bodies to continue to meet remotely.

This followed several days of confusion, with several counties in the Detroit area canceling meetings, after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Monday that its nullification of all of Whitmer’s coronavirus orders went into effect immediately.

One such order allowed public bodies to hold meetings virtually. With that order declared void, public bodies were unsure if they could continue to meet that way, since pre-pandemic meetings were only held in person, resulting in the cancellations.