Michigan hits COVID-19 spike as state adds 23,165 cases, 103 deaths over last week

The state added 23,165 cases and 103 deaths from COVID-19 on Tuesday, including totals from the previous six days, a 44% increase from last week, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Michigan reported an average of about 3,309 cases per day over the last seven days, a double-digit increase from 2,305 cases per day a week prior. On Aug. 9, the state said it had added 16,137 cases and 137 deaths from the virus in the previous week. 

On Monday, the state reported that 1,004 adults and 33 pediatric patients were hospitalized with confirmed infections, an increase from last week's 969 adults and 22 children. Inpatient records were set on Jan. 10, when 4,580 adults were hospitalized with COVID.

On Monday in Michigan, about 6.4% of the state's hospital beds were filled with COVID-19 patients, and there was an average of 1,208 emergency room visits related to COVID-19 per day in the state. That compares with 24% of hospital beds being full and 2,889 daily emergency room visits due to the virus in the first week of January.

Between Aug. 5-11, about 21.5% of Michigan's COVID-19 tests returned positive. 

All Metro Detroit health departments are following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that recommend indoor masking for public settings and K-12 schools as the rate of infection has grown from "medium" to "high."

Tuesday’s additions bring the state's overall totals to 2,731,787 cases and 37,774 deaths since the virus was first detected here in March 2020.

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Ten counties in Michigan this week are considered at a "high" level for the increased burden on health care or severe disease including Baraga, Crawford, Dickinson, Iron, Keweenaw, Ontonagon, Otsego, Roscommon, Schoolcraft and St. Joseph.

The majority of Michigan counties have a "medium" transmission level, according to the state health department.

Case counts are well below early January, when the state set a new high mark with more than 20,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 per day.

In Michigan, variants of the virus have moved at a high rate, proving more contagious than past variants and infecting unvaccinated and vaccinated residents.

A new iteration of the omicron variant, BA.5, now is the dominant strain across the country, and thanks to its elusiveness when encountering the human immune system. The size of that wave is unclear because most people are testing at home or not testing at all. 

Antibodies from vaccines and previous COVID infections offer limited protection against BA.5, leading experts to call it "the worst version of the virus that we've seen."

In Michigan, 308 cases of a rare inflammatory condition in children linked with the coronavirus have been reported to the CDC. About 63% of kids with the syndrome are admitted to intensive care units, and there have been five deaths.

As of Monday, just three outbreaks were reported over the prior week. The state is tracking 19 ongoing outbreak cases.

About 66% of state residents, or 6.6 million, have received their first doses of a vaccine, and 60% are fully vaccinated. More than 238,000 children ages 5-11 in Michigan, or 29%, have received their first dose of the vaccine.

More than 3.2 million individuals, or 35% of the eligible population, have received a vaccine booster in Michigan and 5.6 million are fully vaccinated.

U.S. regulators authorized the first COVID-19 shots for infants and preschoolers, paving the way for vaccinations to begin this week. The Food and Drug Administration's panel unanimous recommend the shots from Moderna and Pfizer for children between 6 months and 5 years old.

srahal@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @SarahRahal_