Michigan: While Michigan’s COVID-19 hospitalization numbers are still the worst in the nation, they have declined a lot over the past month.
State health officials reported that 2,201 people were being treated for the coronavirus in hospitals on Thursday. That’s a drop of 48% from just a month ago.
And other hospital metrics are trending in the right direction as well. People being treated in intensive care units has dropped from 864 a month ago to 613 today. The number of patients requiring mechanical ventilation has decreased by 100 in that time.
All of that may be thanks to vaccination efforts throughout the state. So, too, are declining infection numbers.
State health officials reported 2,057 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday. That brought the seven day average down below 2,000 new cases per day for the first time in nearly two months.
The number of COVID deaths dropped slightly on Thursday. On that day health officials reported 112 new deaths from the coronavirus, with 73 coming from a review of previous death records. That caused the seven day average to decrease by a fraction to 59 deaths per day.
The state’s positivity rate has fallen below 8%. Over the week ending Wednesday, 7.67% of COVID-19 tests conducted in the state returned positive results.
Kalamazoo County: Kalamazoo health officials did not report new COVID numbers on Thursday.
Vaccines: Just as we were about to reach 50% vaccination in Kalamazoo County, the state changed its formula.
With the CDC approving the Pfizer vaccine for use in 12- to 15-year-olds, state health officials have begun including that age group in vaccination data. That means Kalamazoo County dropped from having 49.7% of people 16 and up fully vaccinated to having 46.9% of people 12 and up fully vaccinated.
It’s a semantic difference. Regardless of the age group, nearly 107,000 Kalamazoo County residents have now been fully inoculated against the coronavirus.
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