WVBI COVID-19 Update for October 23, 2020

Hospital leaders around the state are calling for Michiganders to follow COVID-19 safety protocols to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed in the near future. As of Wednesday, the state was reporting 1,221 COVID-19 cases in hospitals with 273 of those in the ICU and 112 on ventilators. There’s been an 80% surge in hospitalizations.  110 of 137 hospital leaders joined in the letter.  In our region, there are 154 total COVID-19 hospitalizations with 45 patients in the ICU and 12 on ventilators. As for capacity in our region, there are a bit more than 1,500 open hospital beds, 100 open ICU beds and about 400 unused ventilators.

 

While there is concern about increasing COVID-19 cases, unemployment stats seem to be headed in the right direction.  The insure unemployment rate in the state has dropped to 7%.  That’s the lowest it has been since March 21^st. Part of that is apparently people transitioning from state to federal assistance, but even allowing for that the number is down dramatically from its peak of almost 23% in mid-May.

Governor Whitmer signed a slew of bi-partisan bills yesterday that reinstate many provisions in her voided executive orders, but also implement a number of provisions that Republican leaders have been seeking for some time.  The governor had previously said that legislative oversite of her COVID-19 response plans would hinder timely action, but it now appears that many issues have been resolved in less than two weeks. Issues linger about masking requirements and, should cases continue to grow, a reversion to lock down requirements—but so far so good it appears.

 

State officials reported 1,873 new cases yesterday and 43 new deaths.  The rolling average for new cases dropped a bit to 1,682 but the average for deaths is up four to 27 deaths a day.  There have been 34,952 new cases in the last 30 days—cases that the state treats as active.  Safe Start stats are unchanged because they haven’t been updated.

 

In our region, there were 30 new cases and no new deaths.  Two cases in Charlevoix.  21 in Grand Traverse. There are 477 active cases in the region with averages at 25 new cases a day and no deaths. No change in our region’s Safe Start numbers because they haven’t been updated, and

no change in the data from the health center.

 

Full county-by-county data for region are in today’s script online along with state, regional, U-P and Safe Start Zone totals, plus rolling averages and active case estimates.

 

 

Data from 10/22/2020