GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — COVID-19 case numbers remain steady in Michigan, with no counties in the state in the high risk category. According to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control, not only are no counties in the red, a large majority are in the green.
Currently, eight counties are in the medium risk category. Seven of those are on the east side of the state. Lake County, in the northwest part of Michigan, is the only medium risk county outside of that group.
All of the other 75 counties in the state are in the low risk category, that includes Kent, Muskegon and Ottawa Counties.
Dr. Andrew Jameson with Trinity Health says this positive trend is a result of a few things, including continued vaccinations and natural immunity on the rise.
"Regular people that have had infection from COVID is high, so our natural immunity is good out there," says Dr. Jameson. "The variants are evolving to be perhaps more infectious, but the severity of outcomes are just not there either. So we're kind of evolving into this kind of sustained, kind of, we call it endemic or just living with COVID."
Dr. Jameson also says, however, that these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.
"It's challenging because our metrics are definitely not the same now as they were a year ago," he says. "So many people now are using home tests. And all of the data we have from the CDC, and all the metrics they use are all the tests that are only the labs that report the results to the health department. So there's a big skew in the data."
Dr. Jameson says he hopes to see the numbers continue to drop with the traditional end of flu season next month. He advises people to continue to look out for one another, saying washing hands remains important as well as staying home when you're feeling sick.
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