In only one Michigan county should people mask, the CDC says - mlive.com

2022-06-25 01:54:10 By : Ms. Nancy Lee

In only one county in Michigan has a high COVID-19 community level. Last week, there were 11.

Only Iron County in the Upper Peninsula is at a high community COVID-19 level this week, meaning people there should mask while indoors and in public, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A week earlier, there were 11 counties in northern Michigan and the U.P. at such a level.

Delta, Presque Isle, Montmorency and Alpena counties have since gone from high-level orange to low-level green. Manistee, Benzie, Leelanau, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska and Antrim counties went from orange to medium-level yellow.

Fifteen counties are yellow. All of them, except for Monroe County in the southeast, are in northern Michigan or the U.P., reports the CDC, which looks at recent hospitalizations and new case information to update its map every Thursday night. Sixty-seven counties, almost all of the Lower Peninsula, are green.

This means people in those areas should wear masks while indoors and in public, says the CDC, which updates its map weekly by late Thursday.

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It is only at the high level orange that the CDC recommends universal masking while indoors and in public.

However, people with symptoms, a positive test or exposure to someone with COVID-19 should wear a mask regardless of where they live, the CDC says, and people at high risk of severe illness might need to take additional precautions when in high COVID-19 communities.

To see how the CDC assessed your county, check out the interactive map below. Tap on or hover over a county to see the underlying data.

Can’t see the map above? Click here.

The CDC relaxed its mask guidance in February, when the worst of the Omicron wave was behind the country, shifting from only looking at cases and positive tests to looking at cases and hospitalizations. The idea is to prevent severe disease and limit strain on hospitals.

A county is at a high level when there are more than 200 new cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days and 10 or more new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 people or 10% of inpatient, staffed beds are occupied by COVID patients on average in the last week; or fewer than 200 new cases per 100,000 people and 10 or more new COVID-19 admissions per-capita in the last seven days or 15% or more of staffed, inpatient hospital beds are occupied by COVID patients on daily average in the last week . (Not every county has a hospital, so each one is assigned a health services area, a geographic region that contains at least one hospital. Counties are attributed the metrics calculated for the entire area, weighted based on each county’s population. The community level is determined by the higher of the two hospital metrics.)

COVID-19 metrics have been on a decline in Michigan for five weeks.

New COVID cases were down another 14.3% this week, with the state reporting 1,588 confirmed cases per day, as of Tuesday, when the state health department did its weekly update.

Hospitalizations are still decreasing, as they have been for weeks. The number of pediatric patients, however, is up this week. Patients in intensive care and on ventilators this week is little changed compared to last week.

As of Tuesday, hospitals statewide were treating 750 adult and 27 pediatric patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19. This includes 93 adult patients in intensive care and 37 on ventilators.

On June 15, hospitals statewide were treating 836 adult and 19 pediatric patients with confirmed or suspected cases. This included 39 patients on ventilators and 98 adults in intensive care.

Michigan is fairing better than other states. Florida, New Mexico and California were seeing the highest per-capita new cases in the last seven days in the continental United States, according to the New York Times data. Michigan was just outside the top 30.

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