Local COVID-19 Rates Remain Low, Despite Spike Downstate

COVID-19 levels remain low across the region. 

The most recent weekly report from the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department includes 21 new confirmed cases – 16 in Houghton County. Officials caution that official statistics do not necessarily include all cases, because most at-home positive test results are not included.

One death was reported from Houghton County, bringing the total number of fatalities in the five-county region to 265 for the pandemic.

Read the full briefing here.

The quiet report from the western U.P. stands in contrast to the overall statewide trend. Confirmed cases in Michigan shot up 60 percent in the past week, fueled by the highly contagious BA.2 subvariant. Although easily transmissible, BA.2 seems to cause relatively mild symptoms in most victims. 

The state averaged 1,104 new diagnoses per day over the past week, as opposed to 697 per day in the previous week. Forty-six Michigan counties saw increases. However, the rate of cases remains far below where it was in January, and the hospitalization level has remained steady. Eleven Michiganders per day are dying from COVID-19 and related effects. That’s well below the nearly 100 deaths per day recorded in January.