MICHIGAN, USA — In the last week, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is reporting nearly 19,000 new cases. That's about 2,700 new cases each day. Hospitalizations are up in Michigan too, by about 16 percent compared to last week.
Local health leaders say they are not anticipating an intense surge like the state saw earlier this year.
Inside Holland Hospital, there are only a few COVID-19 patients right now.
"About half of the patients that we have in the hospital right now are there, I would say with COVID, but not for COVID," Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer Joe Bonello say.
The state's positivity rate is around 20% right now, well above the desired three percent threshold. And while the case count is increasing, Bonello says things are currently looking different than the last omicron surge.
"The severity of cases that we're experiencing right now is considerably less than what we saw in the fall," he says.
He's cautiously optimistic that hospital rates won't grow to match the rising case count this time around.
"When this first broke out, none of us had ever been exposed to this before and so the virus was really able to run rampant," Bonello says. "Now that a lot of people are vaccinated and and a lot of people have had COVID, we all have some immunity, or most of us anyway have some immunity built up to it."
"We're just so pleased to see the proportion of patients that are hospitalized with or for COVID-19. Right now, at least here in Ottawa County has remained below 5%," Ottawa County Department of Public Health Senior Epidemiologist Derel Glashower says.
That number has gotten as high as 40 percent during the pandemic, and Glashower says we'll soon see if hospitalizations will rise to match case counts. He says the next month or so will be a test to see if we're nearing the endemic stage of COVID-19.
"As we see how well our disease induced immunity and how well vaccine induced immunity protects us from further transmission, especially from those poorest outcomes like hospitalization and death, so the best I can give is we'll see," he says.
The state is predicting that this current uptick in cases will peak sometime in May.
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