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The COVID-19 numbers in the Western Upper Peninsula have taken a dramatic turn for the worse.
Last night’s update from the Western U.P. Health Department includes a whopping 229 new positive cases confirmed across the five-county region since the last report was released late Monday. An additional 50 probable cases are also reported.
83 of the confirmed positives are in Houghton County. Baraga County has 64. Gogebic County has 49, Ontonagon County 27, and Keweenaw County has six.
Five new deaths have been added, with two in Ontonagon County, two in Gogebic County, and one in Baraga County.
Baraga County is now the state’s hardest-hit, with a seven-day rolling average of 158 diagnoses per 100,000 residents per day.
Even though our region is especially hard-hit, the entire state has been swept up in the latest spike. Nearly 7,000 cases were confirmed across Michigan just yesterday, with another 49 deaths.
Speaking to the state yesterday, Governor Gretchen Whitmer noted that the national death toll is now averaging more than 1,000 per day…
Whitmer said the dramatic rise is taking a toll on our healthcare system…
The rising infection rates in our communities are sidelining some of the people we need most…
UP Health System CEO Gar Atchison was among a group of five hospital leaders who also carried that message to Michigan residents yesterday. Michigan Health and Hospital Association CEO Brian Peters said hospitals are filling up at a rapid rate. Spectrum Health, which operates hospitals in the western Lower Peninsula, anticipates reaching capacity this weekend, and is beginning to postpone non-essential surgical procedures.
Locally, Western U.P. Health Officer Kate Beer says we’re not that close to capacity, yet…
But, with limited beds in the region, there’s concern about where we would send victims for care if our hospitals do fill up…
Atchison has the same concern for UP Health System-Marquette…
Beer says the solutions are the same as they’ve always been – we just need to use them…
You can hear Todd VanDyke’s full discussion with Beer on this Sunday’s Copper Country Today program.
