Michigan sees increase in COVID-19 infections over past month

Over the past month, Michigan has seen a rise in new COVID-19 infections — though the spike hasn’t been as dramatic as the omicron surge from earlier this year.

Michigan’s Chief Medical Executive Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian says the rise hasn’t been accompanied by the worst outcomes because of vaccinations and infection-related immunity from the omicron surge.

“While we saw an increase in cases and even an increase in hospitalizations, we did not see a significant increase in COVID patients in the ICU, COVID patients on ventilators and COVID related death,” Bagdasarian says.

In Wednesday’s update from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the number of new cases dropped slightly to around 3,700 new infections daily. The state reported last week there were over 4,000 new infections daily.

“Here in Michigan we are protected both by people who have been fully vaccinated and who’ve had recent boosters as well as by the fact that we had such a steep omicron surge so recently.”

Bagdasarian says she’s not overly concerned about another increase in infections following Memorial Day weekend, but it will depend on people’s behavior.

“It really depends on how many people are traveling, how many people are gathering, whether people are using some of those mitigation strategies,” she says. “And then of course, vaccine status plays a lot into this and into how many of these cases are going to be more severe and require hospitalization, for example.”

Bagdasarian says COVID-19 prediction models indicate numbers will drop over the summer, with another rise anticipated once kids go back to school.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said residents in 22 Michigan counties, including Macomb, Oakland and Wayne, should wear masks. The counties have “high” levels of community spread.