11/23/20: Michigan breaks COVID hospitalization record

Hospitalizations: Michigan now has more people in a hospital with COVID-19 than at any point during the pandemic. As of Monday, 4,047 people with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infections were being treated in the state’s hospitals. That surpasses the 3,986 reported on April 13.

One difference between now and the early months of the pandemic is that current hospitalizations are spread throughout the state. In April, the majority of hospitalizations were centered in Detroit and surrounding areas. Nonetheless, hospitals all over the state are reporting near-capacity numbers as they struggle to deal with the influx of COVID-19 patients.

In Kalamazoo, Bronson Methodist Hospital reported 45 coronavirus patients on Monday, putting them at about 76% capacity. Ascension Borgess Hospital had 48 COVID-19 patients and was at 88% capacity.

Michigan: State health officials reported 11,511 new cases of COVID-19 over Sunday and Monday. That brings the seven day moving average to 7,091 cases per day. The average is a slight decrease over Saturday, which makes it the first time the average has gone down in over a month.

The state also reported 65 new deaths from the virus. The state is averaging 71 deaths per day.

Kalamazoo County: County officials reported 354 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday – 118 cases per day. The county is averaging 155 new cases per day over the past seven days.

The county also reported five new deaths over the three day period. The county is averaging nearly three deaths per day.

Positivity Rate: The state reported that 13.05% of the COVID-19 tests conducted on Sunday came back positive. That’s in line with recent days’ positivity rates. The state is averaging 13.13% positivity rate over the previous seven days.

Kalamazoo County’s positivity rate dipped slightly on Sunday. The seven day average on Sunday was 10.72% positivity, which was about two percentage points lower than a week prior.

Uncontrolled Spread: Nearly every state in the U.S. has uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus according to CovidExitStrategy.org. That site tracks the 14-day COVID-19 infection trends of every state and rates them on a color scale from green to dark red. Dark red indicates an increase of cases of COVID-19 more than 25%. Only Hawaii is not dark red.

According to their data, which is drawn from the COVID Tracking Project at the Atlantic, Michigan has seen an increase in coronavirus infections of 761 per million people per day over the past 14 days.