As Michigan models suggest the COVID-19 apex is weeks off, more than 1,000 patients in the state are already on ventilators.
"The next several weeks are going to be very challenging," said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, Michigan's chief medical executive, during a Monday morning press conference.
State data reported on Monday shows there are a total of 17,221 COVID-19 cases and 727 deaths. Khaldun says the state is also collecting daily patient data from all 173 acute care hospitals in Michigan.
On Saturday, Khaldun said those numbers showed that 3,768 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized and 1,338 of them are on ventilators. Additionally, 89% of those hospitalized are in southeast Michigan hospitals.
"Our hospitals continue to be overwhelmed, particularly in Southeast Michigan," Khaldun said.
At Beaumont Health System, Henry Ford Health System and the Detroit Medical Center supplies will be depleted within a matter of days, excluding private donations.
In West Michigan, Spectrum Health said it would be accepting patients from southeast Michigan to help ease the overwhelmed hospitals.
The governor said the state is doing everything it can to attain more equipment in the meantime. In the coming days, FEMA will be sending 300 ventilators, 1.1 million surgical masks, 232,000 face shields and 2 million gloves to Michigan. In addition, FEMA is shipping 1 million N95 masks to Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties this week; nearly 80% of COVID-19 cases in Michigan are in those three counties. Dr. Khaldun also said the TCF Center in Detroit should be up and running by the end of this week, to provide relief to area hospitals.
The state is also purchasing 1 million face shields from Ford over the next three weeks.
Khaldun said while testing supply shortages continue to be a problem, the state's capacity to test has expanded rapidly in the last month. On March 25, Khaldun says the state had processed 9,000 tests and by April 4 that number had jumped to 40,000. There are now 15 labs running tests across the state, which is an increase from the single state lab that was originally processing all tests.
Rapid testing supplies from Abbott Laboratories, a lab that says its produced a test that provides results in 15 minutes or less, will be provided to several Michigan hospitals and the city of Detroit.
"We will continue to make testing a priority and more easily accessible for Michiganders and simpler for our medical providers who want to provide this test for their patients," Khaldun said.
She said the state is working incredibly hard to ensure health systems have the proper equipment, but asked the residents to continue adhering to the guidelines to lessen the impact of the virus.
"The most important thing to do is heed the governor's stay home stay safe order," Khaldun said.
Whitmer and Khaldun are now also urging all residents to wear some sort of cloth mask when leaving the house for essential reasons. Previously, this was not one of the state's guidelines.
Both state officials, however, urged residents to leave N95 and surgical masks for first responders.
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