Health

Virus news: State tops 12,000 cases, nears 500 deaths | Novi may get field hospital | From MSU to front lines

April 03, 2020, 3:45 PM

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Medical care "pods" being set up Thursday at TCF Center. (Photo: Sara Duschinsky/Lovio George)

This roundup of brief local and state pandemic developments will be updated through Friday evening. These items supplement articles today about a suburban Detroiter who beat the virusa Detroit nurse who is "going to fight like hell for all of you" and a look at why it all feels so disorienting.  

New local and state impact totals

The scythe sweeps wider again.

Another 1,953 Michigan patients are diagnosed in the past day, about 500 more than were newly confirmed Thursday. 

The statewide number of COVID-19 diagnoses now is 12,744, while fatalities total 479.


(Graphic: Michigan Department of Health and Human Services)

Among patients whose race is known, blacks make up 40% of deaths and 35% of positive diagnoses, compared to 24% of cases and 28% of deaths for whites. (Race is unknown for about one-third of each category.)

Detroit adds 692 cases in the past day. Another 920 new diagnoses are from other parts of the tricounty area.

Metro Detroit deaths rise to 424 total, including 117 in Detroit. The city and three counties account for 88.5% of Michigan's COVID-19 deaths since counting began March 18.

Not everyone counted is in intensive care or even affected now. The rolling tally since the third week of March doesn’t reflect recovered and discharged patients.

Here’s more context: Nearly 38,000 people have been tested so far for coronavirus, the state Department of Health and Human Services says. Results came back positive for 25.7% of them (9,779).

Friday overall tally includes 10,196 patients from Detroit and its surrounding three counties (80% of the total). 

Detroit has 3,550 cases of the lung infection and at least 117 deaths, according to the state.

Confirmed cases statewide have risen 18% since Thursday, a higher rate of increase that the previous day's 15.6%.

The state says 37,992 COVID tests have been performed, with 9,779 (25.7%) positive results confirming respiratory infection.

Novi also may get MASH-style site

After Army engineers finish overseeing field hospital construction that began Tuesday at TCF Center downtown, they may move west and create one in Suburban Collection Showplace.

"We are leaning ahead to be ready to do that one as quickly as possible" if the governor asks, says Lt. Col. Greg Turner, Detroit district commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, quoted by Crain's.

The 1,000-bed Detroit "temporary alternate care facility" should be ready April 10 for patients transferred from hospitals, he adds.

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College of Medicine students (Photo: MSU Today)

From campus to patient care

Talk about a fast track to the real world: Michigan State University says it's "making available hundreds of health care students ... to Michigan health care systems earlier than usual." The university is working with state regulators to rush through licenses for 361 students "who successfully completed their program requirements."

The emergency staffing support for hospitals and health agencies involves 87 nursing college seniors, 61 medical doctors and 213 osteopathic physicians awaiting graduation from the College of Medicine when it reopens. 

Nursing hands needed in Metro Detroit

Ascension Michigan hospital network nurses are being asked to transfer to hospitals in hard-hit Metro Detroit, their union leader tells Michigan Radio.

"Right now, it’s a volunteer request," says Jamie Brown, a critical care nurse at Ascension Borgess Hospital in Kalamazoo and president of the Michigan Nurses Association. "However, we’re only being offered $2 more an hour [plus food, gas and housing] to go and put our lives at risk.

"We’re hoping to keep it volunteer-only, but if it gets bad enough, they will start mandating people over there. I've had nurses, several nurses, threaten to quit if we’re mandated into other hospitals. And if we're going over there for $2 more an hour, that's not worth uprooting our lives and leaving our families."

A statement attributed to Maureen Chadwick, chief nursing officer for Ascension Michigan, says the requests are "aligned with our Catholic tradition of helping those in need." She adds: "We will work together to slow the transmission of Covid-19 while protecting our patients, associates and the communities we serve.”

Nearly scooterless streets

Detroit has gone from threee scooter-sharing services to one. Bird and Lime yanked all their rental two-wheelers out of the city, the Freep reports. Spin, owned by Ford Motor Co., still offer rides to credit card registrants.

Bird says it may return when a statewide stay-home order is lifted or eased. Lime halted service everywhere but South Korea.

More MSU medical backup

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In another East Lansing campus break for healthcare workers, MSU researchers develop a way to re-sterilize N95 masks using commercial ovens. The method could address the shortage of protective medical masks, the Lansing State Journal reports.

The process uses forced, heated air in commercial ovens. After more tests, MSU Extension Director Jeff Dwyer hopes to ramp up work at the univerity's Food Processing and Innovation Center and begin collecting and decontaminating masks from local healthcare providers next week.



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