Of the 17 communities in the U.S. where COVID cases are rising fastest, 15 are in Michigan.
As more and more Americans get vaccinated, I grow more and more optimistic that we are gradually stepping into post-pandemic life. As noted yesterday, the seven-day moving average of new deaths is down to 525, the lowest it has been since October. (Correction: The three-day average on Monday is 549, the seven-day average was 818.) The latest measurement of average ICU capacity at 4,816 hospitals across the country is 70 percent. As of March 29, 42 percent of American public schools are back full-time, and another 51 percent are back in hybrid form. Even California governor Gavin Newsom – Newsom! – says his state’s economy should be able to fully reopen by June 15. (Amazing how a little recall effort can influence his thinking!)
But if there’s one glaring exception in this overall picture of good news… it’s the state of Michigan. And boy, is the Wolverine State in rough shape compared to the rest of the country. Of the twelve worst-hit communities in the U.S. over the past two weeks, ten are in Michigan. Of the 17 communities in the U.S. where cases are rising fastest, 15 are in Michigan.
On March 6, the seven-day-moving average of daily new cases was 1,503; yesterday, it was 6,697. One month ago, the state had 89,533 active cases; yesterday, it had 191,639. One month ago, the seven-day-moving average of daily deaths was 21, now it is up to 34. As of Monday, four Michigan hospitals are at 100 percent capacity, five are at 99 percent capacity, and another seven are above 90 percent capacity.
You might think that with numbers like these, Michigan must be doing terribly with its vaccination program, but it’s around the middle of the pack in percentage of population vaccinated – both one shot and fully vaccinated – and bottom half, but not terrible, in percentage of vaccine supply administered. If subpar vaccination programs were the driving factor in case surges like this, we would be seeing a comparable explosion of cases in states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, but we aren’t.
One Detroit doctor contends the state’s residents are getting lax about their precautions.
Restaurants and bars are pushing their permitted 50 percent maximum capacity (capped at 300 patrons). Much of the clientele in those restaurants appears to young people — and young people are increasingly among the hospitalized in Michigan. From March 5 to March 27, more than half of all covid cases in Michigan were people under age 39. Anecdotally, I can report that people here have lately become much more casual about wearing masks.
This doctor is probably describing what he sees accurately, but it’s really tough to believe that Michiganders are uniquely bad in gathering in bars or wearing masks lately. That leaves more contagious variants like the B117 variant as an explanation, which no doubt explains part of the phenomenon… but every state has reported the B117 variant. Five other states have reported more than 750 cases of the B117 variant, but the overall caseloads in California, Colorado and Florida remain pretty flat. Massachusetts and Minnesota are starting to creep up a bit, but nowhere as badly as Michigan has.
Is this a seasonal weather thing? Are Michiganders spending more time indoors, while residents of the more southern, warmer states are spending more time outdoors with more air circulation?
One last note: The national media institutions like the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN have all done reports about the surge of new cases in Michigan. But most of the coverage makes only passing reference to governor Gretchen Whitmer, and certainly none of it suggests the case surge is her fault. I think it’s safe to say if there was a similar sudden surge in cases in Florida, Texas, or Georgia, the national media coverage would not hesitate to blame state policies.
A Post column came closest to making the argument that the Biden administration has a potentially effective response, and is not using it.
Last week, Whitmer appealed to White House officials to shift away from a strict population-based formula for vaccine allocation and instead rush more doses to hard-hit parts of the country, including her state.
“I know that some national public health experts have suggested this as an effective mitigation tool,” she said during the White House coronavirus response team’s weekly call with governors, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by The Washington Post’s Isaac Stanley-Becker. “And I know we’d certainly welcome this approach in our state.”
Yet the administration seems to be sticking with the population-based distribution system.
President Biden largely hasn’t changed the allocation metrics used by the Trump administration. States are given vaccine doses based on the size of their adult population, regardless of their infection rates or number of elderly people, although some additional vaccine doses are set aside for retail pharmacies, mass vaccination sites and community health centers.
This week, Michigan made any resident 16 years old or older eligible to get vaccinated.