Michigan COVID-19 cases exceed 50,000 with 4,800 deaths; death rate falls

Lansing — The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Michigan reached 50,000 Friday, but daily reports of new deaths have slowed in recent days.

The state reported 497 new cases of the novel coronavirus and 38 new deaths linked to it Friday, pushing the overall totals here to 50,079 cases and 4,825 deaths, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

In the last seven days, the state has reported 432 new deaths, down from 527 new deaths during the prior seven previous days. Two weeks earlier, April 25 through May 1, the state reported 781 new deaths.

The newest data on COVID-19 testing in Michigan available showed a spike in testing on Wednesday. The state reported 23,647 tests performed Wednesday, the most in a single day yet.

According to the state's numbers, 10.7% of the tests returned positive results. Michigan had previously reported 12 straight days with less than 10% of tests being positive.

As of Thursday, 79 of Michigan's 83 counties had at least one confirmed case of the virus. But the number of cases in 22 of the 79 counties hadn't increased in the previous seven days.

Michigan continued Friday to rank seventh nationally for the number cases and fourth for the number of deaths, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins University. In deaths, Michigan was behind New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

As of May 8, 22,686 Michigan residents were considered "recovered" from COVID-19, meaning they were still alive 30 days after the onset of illness. The Department of Health and Human Services updates the recovery figure once a week on Saturday. The department doesn't have data on recoveries by county.

cmauger@detroitnews.com