LANSING, Mich.– On Wednesday, health experts with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported that the state is seeing a decline in Covid-19 cases, tests coming back positive, and hospitalizations.
“If I was doing this conversation last week, I would have said that we’re cautiously optimistic and today I’m using the words that we’re encouraged, ” said state epidemiologist with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Sarah Lyon-Callo.
She said that cases of the virus have been declining.
“They’ve been declining for more than 29 days now and we’re seeing decreases in most age groups, races, and ethnicity groups,” said Lyon-Callo.
The number of people in the hospital with Covid-19 has also been dropping.
“Hospitalizations are down 30 percent since our December peak, ICU occupancies meaning the number of beds that are filled with people being treated with Covid-19 that declined 16 percent over the last week,” Lyon-Callo said.
Compared to other states in the country, “we’re the 15th highest state in terms of the number of cases but we’re the 43rd highest state in terms of our case rate,” said Lyon-Callo. Michigan is also 5th highest when it comes to the number of deaths.
With Christmas this week, officials looked back on Thanksgiving and what travel looked like that week. Studies found that travel the week of Thanksgiving this year, than it was last year, and more than 60 percent of people dined with those living in their own household.
“Michiganders mostly had dinner with people in their household only so very encouraging signs so we’re able to maintain social distancing which will help to continue our decline in cases if we can keep this pattern through the holiday season,” said Lyon-Callo.
During the meeting, vaccines were also mentioned. 6 News checked Michigan.gov/covidvaccine Wednesday night, and there had been more than 37-thousand vaccines administered, which means the shot was given to someone.
