10/15/20: Michigan hits record high for new COVID cases

State health officials reported 2,030 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday. It’s the single highest one-day total of new cases in Michigan during the pandemic. The second-highest one-day total was 1,953 new cases on April 3. Thursday’s total pushed the state’s seven day moving average to 1,293 new cases per day.

The state also reported 32 new deaths from the coronavirus with 21 of them coming from a review of previous death records. The state is averaging almost 15 new deaths per day.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services noted that there was a slowdown in reporting new infection numbers to the state’s reporting system on Wednesday, which accounts for some of Thursday’s record number.

A steady increase of new infections over the past month has health experts worried. Kalamazoo County Epidemiologist Mary Franks told NowKalamazoo that people need to not let their guard down in protecting themselves from the virus.

“We’re in the second wave of COVID-19 cases, and the second wave has already proved to be larger than the first,” she said.

Kalamazoo County reported 95 new confirmed cases of the virus on Thursday with an additional 21 probable cases coming from antibody tests. The county is regularly seeing more new infections than it has at any point during the pandemic.

Kalamazoo County is coded “red” according to a metric developed by the Harvard Global Health Institute, indicating residents should stay home to prevent the spread of the virus.