10/1/20: 891 new COVID cases, 19 deaths

State health officials on Thursday reported 891 new cases of COVID-19. The rate brought the seven day moving average down slightly to 854 new cases per day.

Nineteen more people have died from the virus, though 11 of them were discovered during a review of previous death records. The state is averaging more than 11 deaths per day.

Kalamazoo County officials reported 37 new confirmed COVID-19 infections on Thursday along with another ten probable cases coming from antibody tests. No new deaths were reported Thursday. The county is averaging about 36 new cases per day.

Hospitalizations for the coronavirus are rising statewide. The state reports 693 people being hospitalized for confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday. That’s almost 200 more than just a week ago.

Many of those who have been hospitalized have been in the western part of Michigan’s upper peninsula where infections have ravaged the area’s relatively small health systems.

In the lower peninsula, no county is seeing as many new infections as Calhoun County. Health officials there have reported an average of more than 20 new cases per day per 100,000 people. That’s nowhere near as high as the hardest hit counties in the U.P., but it’s more than the next-highest county – Kalamazoo – with 18 new infections per day per 100,000 people.

Both Kalamazoo and Calhoun counties have been labeled “orange” based on a metric developed by the Harvard Global Health Institute. That indicates both counties are at risk of accelerated spread of the virus.