The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) reported Monday that a total of 1,980,613 Michiganders have tested positive for COVID-19 and 29,843 have died from the virus — an additional 21,242 cases and 65 deaths since Friday.
The new numbers combine Saturday’s, Sunday’s and Monday’s recorded cases and deaths, with an average of 7,081 new confirmed cases per day. DHHS publishes COVID-19 data three times weekly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
The DHHS also reported Monday that 3,330 people are hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases. Of those individuals, 596 are in intensive care units and 380 are on ventilators. There are 93 children hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases.
DHHS reported that an additional 275,809 Michiganders have been identified as “probable” cases for COVID-19, as well as 2,419 probable deaths. The department began tracking probable cases on April 5, 2020.
Combining the state’s confirmed positive cases with probable cases brings the total up to 2,235,180 statewide cases and 32,197 deaths.
The state is also reporting school- and sports-related COVID-19 outbreaks on a weekly basis. As of Monday, there are 410 new or ongoing COVID-19 clusters or outbreaks in pre-kindergarten-12 schools.
Of those, 126 are new outbreaks reported Monday.
The DHHS issued a school guidance Jan. 10 to strongly recommend a universal mask mandate in schools along with other CDC-developed prevention strategies.
Michigan State University | Susan J. Demas
The state stopped reporting COVID-19 outbreaks in colleges and universities to “streamline the local health department weekly outbreak reporting survey to focus on congregate settings where patients and staff might be more at risk for infection and/or experience severe outcomes from infection” during the current surge in cases.
There are 184 pre-kindergarten-12 schools with outbreaks of 10 cases or more, including Lapeer High School (140 cases), Caro High School (102), Grayling High School (102 cases), Croswell Lexington High School (96 cases), Pinconning High School (76 cases), and Garber High School (73 cases).
There are some holes in the state’s reporting of school-related outbreaks, as DHHS doesn’t track individual COVID-19 cases in schools and relies on local health departments to track and report.
To be considered an outbreak, the local health department must have found three or more COVID-19 cases that may have shared exposure on school grounds and are from different households. Previously, the state considered an outbreak to be two or more COVID-19 cases.
Case counts for school-related outbreaks include those associated with before and after school programs and cases originating from on-campus and off-campus student housing.
According to DHHS spokesperson Lynn Sutfin, students or staff who were exposed to COVID-19 outside of school grounds and are not thought to have spread the disease on the school grounds are not included in the report.
Michigan’s two largest universities, University of Michigan and Michigan State University, are reporting significant outbreaks.
Michigan State University reported that as of Jan. 24, it was aware of 3,410 cases of COVID-19 among students, faculty and staff since the week of Aug. 2. MSU went back to in-person learning this week. University of Michigan reports that, as of the week of Jan. 22, 781 staff and students have tested positive for COVID-19.
The virus has been detected in all of Michigan’s 83 counties. The state’s COVID-19 fatality rate is currently at 1.5%.
The first two cases of COVID-19 were reported in the state on March 10, 2020. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency that day.
Johns Hopkins University reports that there are about 376.4 million confirmed cases worldwide and 5.6 million deaths. The United States makes up a significant portion of those, as 74.6 million confirmed cases and 885,614 deaths have been recorded nationally.
authored by Anna Gustafson
First published at https%3A%2F%2Fmichiganadvance.com%2F2022%2F01%2F31%2Fstate-reports-126-new-covid-19-school-outbreaks-in-last-week%2F
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