Proposed explanation for "how" Michigan became #1 in new Covid cases per 100,000
From Michigan became hotspot as variants rose and vigilance fell
Doctors, medical professionals and public health officials point to a number of factors that explain how the situation has gotten so bad in Michigan. More contagious variants, especially the mutation first discovered in Britain, have taken root here with greater prevalence than other states. Residents have emerged from harsh, lengthy state restrictions on dining and crowd sizes and abandoned mask wearing and social distancing, especially in rural, northern parts of the state that had largely avoided severe outbreaks. The state has also had average vaccine compliance. Michigan has recorded a highest-in-the-nation 91,000 new COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks, despite improvements in the numbers in recent days. By comparison, that is more cases than California and Texas had combined in the same period.
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Dr. Mark Hamed, medical director in the emergency department at McKenzie Hospital in Sandusky, Michigan, and for several counties in the state’s northern region, says the area was spared from rampant COVID-19 last year and that may have created a false sense of security, especially among the region’s farmers and blue-collar workers who suffered economically from the pandemic and already were feeling COVID fatigue. ‘’Businesses weren’t really enforcing mask-wearing,’’ and many people in the region shunned them anyway, he said. Now, with variants spreading and many people still unvaccinated, his area “is being hit pretty hard,’’ Hamed said. "Our ER is absolutely swamped beyond belief.’’
Query: are these factors sufficient to differentiate Michigan's numbers from those of states below the national average?
Doctors, medical professionals and public health officials point to a number of factors that explain how the situation has gotten so bad in Michigan. More contagious variants, especially the mutation first discovered in Britain, have taken root here with greater prevalence than other states. Residents have emerged from harsh, lengthy state restrictions on dining and crowd sizes and abandoned mask wearing and social distancing, especially in rural, northern parts of the state that had largely avoided severe outbreaks. The state has also had average vaccine compliance. Michigan has recorded a highest-in-the-nation 91,000 new COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks, despite improvements in the numbers in recent days. By comparison, that is more cases than California and Texas had combined in the same period.
(...)
Dr. Mark Hamed, medical director in the emergency department at McKenzie Hospital in Sandusky, Michigan, and for several counties in the state’s northern region, says the area was spared from rampant COVID-19 last year and that may have created a false sense of security, especially among the region’s farmers and blue-collar workers who suffered economically from the pandemic and already were feeling COVID fatigue. ‘’Businesses weren’t really enforcing mask-wearing,’’ and many people in the region shunned them anyway, he said. Now, with variants spreading and many people still unvaccinated, his area “is being hit pretty hard,’’ Hamed said. "Our ER is absolutely swamped beyond belief.’’
Query: are these factors sufficient to differentiate Michigan's numbers from those of states below the national average?
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 1:24 PM
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