The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases in Michigan has dropped 14% in the past week.
The seven-day mean positivity rate on diagnostic tests for the coronavirus has declined for the 11th consecutive days.
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“Ask me that question within a week,” said Dr. Liam Sullivan, infectious disease specialist for Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids.
“Too soon to say,” said Dr. Paul Entler, a vice president at Sparrow Health System in Lansing. “I’d like to see another week of numbers.”
“I have two theories,” said Dr. Joel Fishbein, infectious disease specialist at Grosse Pointe at Beaumont Health. “The first theory is that this week everyone is breeding based on exposures from the past two weeks and it will peak again next week. When I’m wrong, it just keeps going down.
“I hope I’m wrong, but let’s wait to make sure there aren’t a lot of people who are just smoldering and waiting to get symptomatic,” he said. “If it’s still going on in a week, we might be done.”
If the tide does turn, it will not be too early. Michigan is currently No. 1 in the country in terms of coronavirus transmission speeds, and the brutality of the current wave has resulted in record hospital admissions, putting health care resources under severe strains.
“This has certainly been the worst wave of all,” said Entler, and one factor is the ongoing stress on health care workers.
The general public is unaware of the pandemic’s long-term effects on hospital staff, including the mental stress of caring for so many critically ill people, he said. “We see more deaths over a long period of time than we normally see.”
And even as the number of cases decreases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to rise – no surprise, as those are lagging factors. In previous peaks, hospital admissions continued to increase for about two weeks after the peak in cases, and deaths for an additional two weeks afterward.
A particularly worrying aspect of hospital admissions was that patients were younger and sicker compared to the first year of the pandemic, which doctors attribute to the B.1.1.7. variant that is more contagious and deadly.
In fact, doctors say they are seeing fewer seniors – who are more likely to be vaccinated – and many more patients under age 50, most of whom were only recently eligible for COVID-19 vaccines.
“What really concerns me is the number of cases we see in the age group of zero to nine, which is much higher than before,” Sullivan said.
In fact, 71 children were hospitalized in pediatric wards on Tuesday, which is a record.
Fishbain said he is also seeing a wave of younger, sicker patients. “It’s like taking what we saw before and shifting it down by a decade or two,” he said. “We have 20 year olds in hospital and 30 year olds who need oxygen, which we have never seen before, and who need as much treatment as we can give them. We have 40 and 50 year olds who end up on fans. “
The good news is that while the number of hospital admissions has skyrocketed, the number of deaths has increased less. While Michigan has an average of about 57 deaths per day, that’s half the average at the height of the fall rise. This is due to the relatively high vaccination coverage among the elderly, who were most at risk of dying from COVID-19.
That people 65 and older have been less affected by the current increase shows the effectiveness of the vaccines, doctors say, and the hope is that ramping up the vaccination program among younger adults and teens will also reduce the number of cases.
However, it can be a slow process: Nearly 70% of people ages 16 to 49 have yet to get their first injection, and it takes five to six weeks after that first dose for full immunity to kick in with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
“We know the vaccines work,” said Entler. “The whole key to vaccines is to prevent hospitalizations and deaths, and this is where it turns out to be true” among those vaccinated.
The problem, however, is that not enough people have been fully immunized.
“The sooner we can get the young population vaccinated, the sooner we can limit this,” said Entler. “And hopefully we can prevent another wave.”
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