COVID Update: Cases jump back up

Kalamazoo County: After declining last week, COVID-19 case numbers shot back up over the past seven days, according to the latest report from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).

Health officials reported that there were 585 new cases of COVID-19 in Kalamazoo County over the past week. That pushed the average from 69 new cases per day a week earlier to almost 84 new cases per day last week.

On a brighter note, there was only one COVID death reported in Kalamazoo County last week. That’s a decline from the previous week’s number, though Kalamazoo’s fatality stats have been pretty consistently low for several months now.

Michigan: New case numbers also shot up in the rest of the state over the past week.

State health officials reported that there were 23,165 new cases of COVID-19 over the past seven days. That pushed the average up from 2,305 new cases per day last week to 3,309 new cases per day this week.

MDHHS did report that some of the up and down is because of delays at laboratories testing for the coronavirus. That pushed what would have been the earlier week's numbers into last week.

Just like in Kalamazoo County, deaths are down statewide. The state reported 103 new COVID-19 deaths over the past week. That brought the daily average down from nearly 20 deaths per day to just under 15 deaths per day.