11/1/20: New COVID cases continued to break records over the Halloween weekend

State health officials reported a record-breaking number of new COVID-19 infections on Halloween – 3,792 new cases of the coronavirus. That followed 3,168 new cases on Friday. The duo of stats brought the state’s seven day moving average to 2,879 new cases per day as of Saturday.

The state also reported 11 new deaths from the coronavirus on Friday and 31 new deaths Saturday with 20 of Saturday’s deaths coming from a review of previous death records. The state is averaging almost 23 new deaths per day.

Hospitalizations rose to 1,728 people on Friday. That’s almost 100 people more than the previous day. There were nearly 400 people being treated for the coronavirus in the state’s ICUs.

One of the most worrying trends was the state’s positivity rate. That rate hit 9.14% on Friday. The state had been hovering around 3% for most of the past few months, but rates have climbed steadily over October to levels that indicate spread of the virus is getting out of control.

Kalamazoo County reported five new deaths from the coronavirus on Friday. That brought the county’s seven day moving average above 1 for the first time in months. As of Friday, the county is averaging 1.6 deaths per day.

The county also reported 123 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. Kalamazoo County is averaging about 88 new cases per day.

Meanwhile, Western Michigan University seems to be getting its COVID-19 infection rate under control. On Friday, the university reported numbers for the first three days of last week. As of October 28, WMU had 22 new cases of the virus. That’s down from 29 new cases during the same period the week before and 48 new cases the week before that.

The university had an average positivity rate of 2.7% last Wednesday and was averaging about 4 new cases per day.