Just a week after setting a pandemic record for Covid-19 cases, the state of Michigan smashed through it and set a new one. Data released Wednesday from the Department of Health and Human Services shows an average of 13,673 new cases on each of the past two days, along with 277 deaths.
More record-shattering Covid numbers this week (File photo: DepositPhotos)
To put that in perspective, that's 744 more daily cases than the Dec. 29 record.
Over the course of the pandemic,1,595,919 confirmed cases have been found in Michigan, with 27,563 deaths. (The health department classifies 1,284,015 of those who were infected as recovered, as of Dec. 29.)
Another alarming marker came in the area of testing. Statewide, nearly one-third of Covid tests were positive, with nearly 46 percent in the city of Detroit.
On Wednesday, the state health department reported 4,190 adults are hospitalized with confirmed virus infections, as were 107 children. That tally has been trending upward since July. About 84% of the state's inpatient hospital beds are occupied.
On Dec. 13, the state health department reported 4,518 adults were hospitalized with confirmed virus infections, the highest number during the pandemic so far.
During the surge in the winter of 2020, the number of adults hospitalized with confirmed infections peaked at 3,884 on Dec. 1. During the surge in the spring of 2021, the count was above 4,000 for only a handful of days.
The surge is driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 95 percent of the new cases are Omicron.
