Lansing Lines is presented in cooperation with MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

COVID-19 Surge Likely To Peak In Late Jan.-Early Feb.

The ongoing COVID-19 surge isn’t likely to reach its peak until the end of January or early February, according to coronavirus scenario hubs viewed by Michigan health officials.

Amongst the most cynical predictions for Michigan, COVID-19 hospitalizations could peak at 8,000 – more than a 90% increase from when the state broke the hospitalization record with 4,191 in late November of 2021.

Slide from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services during Jan. 11 media briefing.

While an optimistic forecast shows hospitalizations not experiencing much of an increase – similar to where the state is now – Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, the state’s chief medical executive, said, “We don’t think that is likely to be reflective of our next few weeks here in Michigan.”

“These are ensemble models utilizing information and scenarios put together from top academic institutions around the country, funded by the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and very similar to CDC models…they’re showing that we will likely peak between the end of January to early February, and then after that things will start coming down,” Bagdasarian said.

At this morning’s media briefing, Bagdasarian presented “the most pessimistic to the most optimistic” COVID-19 scenarios from the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub. The expectations included that cases and virus-related hospitalizations will peak somewhere between the end of January to the end of February, at the latest – in every state.

“If we first look at cases, what we’re expecting is a very sharp and fast peak. When we look at our most pessimistic model, we’re looking at about 200,000 cases per week in Michigan – and in fact, the most pessimistic model does seem to be the most accurate when we look at some of the assumptions behind it,” Bagdasarian said.

From Jan. 3-9, the state reported 129,937 weekly cases – the highest number of weekly cases Michigan has ever experienced throughout this pandemic. Additionally on Monday, Michigan set a new record for COVID-19 hospitalizations at 4,581 adults, with 540 patients on ventilators and 833 in intensive care units.

The state reported 44,524 new cases of COVID-19 over a three-day period and 56 deaths.

“People in their 20s and 30s are experiencing the highest case rates of any group, and while breakthrough cases are to be expected with Delta and given the much greater transmissibility of Omicron, people who are unvaccinated are still fueling the surge,” said Elizabeth HERTEL, the Director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Hertel said there are now five federal teams assisting with staffing and patient care at the Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn, Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, Covenant HealthCare in Saginaw, Mercy Health in Muskegon and the Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital.

Bagdasarian said the Omicron variant appears to be the most predominant strain in Michigan, although there is likely some difference from region to region. She explained the state is likely in a region where Omicron accounts for somewhere around 90% of the caseload in numerous regions.

“Now what’s really up to us as a state is how high do we want that peak to be? Because I think that if we don’t use the tools we have – and we have a lot of tools – if we don’t use the tools we have, we can expect those peaks to be at those really worst case scenarios,” she said. “So we have a choice to make – do we want to work on bringing that peak down? Or do we just want to let this Omicron surge explode.”

COVID Cases Exploding To 20,000+ A Day; Deaths Staying Stagnant

A lot more people are coming down with COVID-19, but that doesn’t necessarily mean more people are dying of it.

An average of 20,346 Michiganders tested positive for COVID-19 over the last two days, a meteoric rise in positive numbers that doubles the daily tally reported over the Christmas/New Year’s holidays of roughly 10,000.

To put early January’s two-day total of 40,692 cases in perspective, on Jan. 7, 2021, Michigan reported 4,015 new cases of COVID. The recent two-day average is more than five times that number.

Meanwhile, an average of 129 Michigan residents died with COVID over the last two days, which is in the ballpark of the average death numbers since mid-November. From Nov. 17 to Jan. 7, an average of 92 Michigan residents have died a day with COVID.

Between Jan. 6-7, 2021, an average of 113 Michiganders died with COVID.

Case rates are exploding across the country, according to New York Times data. Nationally, daily case rates crested 600,000, well over twice the previous high of 250,512 cases.

In related news, Michigan received its first shipment of new oral medications to treat COVID-19, paxlovid and molnupiravir, following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recent emergency use authorization, the Department of Health and Human Services reported.

These antiviral prescription medications are geared to reduce mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms within five days of onset. The antivirals are believed to be able to reduce symptoms and a trip to the emergency room, but must be prescribed by a doctor.

Doctors Warn Of Flurona As Omicron Surge Continues

The Michigan State Medical Society sounded the alarm in mid-January about the real possibility of adults coming down with COVID and the flu at the same time, calling such a “twin-demic” “the absolute worst-case scenario.”

If there isn’t an uptick in flu vaccinations, MSMS president Dr. Pino Colone said we could see “Flurona,” in patients, which can severely hamper a person’s immune system.

“With students back in the classroom and the majority of people now in the workplace, flu cases are rising. It is even possible to become infected with the flu and COVID simultaneously,” he said.

Colone brought up the subject as the ongoing Omicron surge continues to produce sky-high infection rates with no one knowing when the peak will come.

During a recent stretch, Michigan reported 37,114 COVID-19 cases and 251 virus-related deaths, making a daily average of 18,557 cases.

Confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations stand at 4,579 adults and 117 pediatric patients, with youth hospitalizations being the highest they have been since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During a media briefing, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services shared “the most pessimistic” predictions showing Michigan could peak with 8,000 hospitalizations amid the Omicron surge – such a skyrocket in hospitalizations would be around 74% higher than the record the state broke med-month.

Dr. Nicholas Haddad, an associate professor of infectious disease at Central Michigan University, works at Covenant HealthCare in Saginaw, which was sent a federal medical team from the Department of Defense due to staffing shortages and an overwhelming cascade in hospitalizations.

When asked about his forecast for COVID-19 patients in Michigan, Haddad illustrated to MIRS that “it’s definitely spiking up – way more than the surges of last year,” as well as the November through December surge of 2020 and including the September surge of 2021.

“Luckily, Omicron tends to be a bit milder, so it’s not sending people down to the hospital or not really causing a lot of deaths per se. But be that as it may, we don’t want to risk anybody’s health because even unvaccinated individuals with Omicron may ultimately require hospitalization,” Haddad said.

He said with the state’s unvaccinated population able to develop more severities connected to their infection, “a lot of collateral damage will occur,” such as people with cancer or heart conditions not being able to find a hospital bed.

“I mean, that’s a very sad, doomy situation to think about, and I would say that it’s because people are not getting vaccinated,” Haddad said.

Haddad said Michigan certainly is not experiencing a twin-demic at the moment, with COVID-19 standing as the completely predominant infection – a role amplifed by the wildly contagious Omicron variant. However, he is anticipating the flu virus would be more common this year than it was in 2021.

“Now with COVID-19 being so prevalent, and with flu picking up, one would see cases whereby an individual who has COVID-19 gets influenza, and that’s what people are terming ‘Flurona,'” he said. “I can tell you it’s going to be possible, but it’s not going to be extremely common as far as we can tell.”

He added when there’s a highly transmissible virus like COVID-19, other viral activities tend to lose their prevalence under the medical world’s lens – for example, “last year, we had almost no influenza activity.”

However, because of overlapping types of symptoms, he said on “clinical grounds, we’re not able to pick up the difference. In other words, I won’t be able to tell you just by looking and examining and taking custody of my patient if they have COVID-19 or the flu or even both of them together.”

In other COVID-19 news, the DHHS also announced it will be kicking off a pilot project with Michigan libraries to provide free, at-home testing kits to residents. Nearly 5,500 kits were shipped to 18 libraries in Saginaw, Oceana, Newaygo, Calhoun and Clare Counties and Detroit.

“We are continuing to find innovative ways to provide Michiganders with opportunities to protect themselves from COVID-19,” said DHHS Director Elizabeth Hertel. “Testing is an important tool to limit the spread of the virus and we encourage residents to visit participating library locations to get their test kits.”

Nursing Home COVID Numbers Up

While state health officials reported that COVID-19 cases were exploding here, two national groups monitoring the health care crisis in nursing home and assisted living facilities were reporting the same mushrooming effect among the elderly and the staff in those facilities.

The American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living have traced the growth of COVID-19 beginning at the low point of Dec 19, 2021, when there were 4,361 resident cases and 5,919 among those who serve them. The next week, the numbers jumped by almost 2,000 more residents and 8,000 more staffers.

By Jan. 2, the residential caseload was 18,186 and 42,004 on the staff and the most recent data from Jan. 9 reveals 32,000 and 57,000 cases per resident and staff.

Remembering that the death rate sometimes lags by as much as three weeks behind the case count, the groups indicate that on Dec. 20 there were 6,219 client deaths that week compared to 645 on Jan. 9. On the same date 67 employee deaths were record for that week.

In Michigan, the latest Department of Health and Human Services data shows 324 resident cases and five deaths and staff infections numbered 463 with no fatalities.