The article is for subscribers. I subscribe to Detroit News but not FP. Could you provide a summary of the report? Thanks.
Mutations of the Omicron virus variant are increasingly showing up in Michigan, according to State Health Officials, noting at least a half dozen different subvariants had been detected as of Friday.
(They then go thru each variant stating each variant is slightly different.
Omicron is the prevailing variant and has been since early December in the United States.
The article states that Omicron has now become so many different things--- What was Omicron In January is not what Omicron is now, and some of them are better able to spread than the original Omicron. Those more contagious subvariants could be driving up cases yet again.
The seven day average of new daily coronavirus cases in Michigan has risen 239% in one month's time, state data shows from 799 on April 6 to 2706 on May 4.
BA.2.12 is the one that took over New York and in just like a week or two---said Robert Tibbets,
Associate Dir. of Microbiology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, which began whole genome sequencing of its own coronavirus test samples in January.
South Africa is being hit hard by Covid again and this is what it means for the US:
As each variant emerges it tends to be more contagious. He added that the hope is that as the virus continues to mutat, the new strains and sublineages that evolve will cause less severe disease
and fewer hospitalizations.
"So rather than only infecting a few people and killing them, it infects many many people and they survive and infect many many more just like a regular cold that we get every year, rhinoviruses, these kinds of things are just super contagious.
Though Covid deaths have been falling for minths, that is a lagging pandemic indicator as deaths
don't typically rise until weeks after people are infected and hospitalized. Hospitalizations of
Michiganders with the virus are climbing, but nowhere near the levels of hospitalization seen In January. The article goes on to state that it is difficult to get a clear picture of how much virus
is spreading right now because more people are testing at home so their results are not being
reported to state health authorities and some aren't testing at all, writing off symptoms
to allergies or colds.
We don't have that kind of real-time data that we did in the past so we are relying on things like
looking at hospital numbers, looking at wastewatr to try to guage where we are at.
A discussion ensued of what will coronavirus look like this summer? Health experts say
the virus will not be endemic yet. Although not as many people are getting PCR tests at
sites that report results to the state health dept, the percentage of positive tests among those
who do test, also has risen.
The percent positivity rate has tripled in one month's time in Michigan jumping from
6% on April 3 to 17.5% on May3, according to state data. "We appear to be in a surge
in Michigan even though our case numbers don't appear to be as high as they appeared
in the past, and even though hospitalizations are not jumping like they did during the Omicron surge, and the Delta surge.
The question is how high will the next surge go in Michigan?
especially given fewer people are wearing masks and many have abandoned other measures
that are known to slow the spread of the virus. Dr. Lauring said "we could be heading toward a De;ta or an Omicron overcrowding level at hospitals but maybe not: we just don't know".
Dr. Lauring stated that we are still kind of in the pandemic even though we don't like it.
(The article is pretty long- I will finish it a bit later)-- This is depressing news- I have not gotten my 2nd booster yet, what about you? I am considering though, especially with this kind of bad news.
