Michigan: 17,003 new COVID-19 cases, 280 additional virus deaths over past two days

Michigan public health officials reported Wednesday 17,003 new COVID-19 cases over a two-day period, Tuesday-Wednesday, and 280 additional virus deaths over the past two days.

The two-day case total brought the state’s total confirmed cases to 1,276,264 and deaths to 23,595 since the onset of the pandemic. Of the 280 deaths announced Wednesday, 143 of them were identified during a vital records review.

According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), those totals represent testing data collected Tuesday and Wednesday. MDHHS publishes new case, death, and vaccination numbers every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with new outbreak-related data published every Monday. On Friday, Nov. 26, the state will not release data due to the holiday, with the next release coming Monday.

Locally, since Monday, Macomb County has reported 1,650 new cases and 25 additional deaths. In Oakland County, there were 2,025 new cases and 15 additional deaths. In Wayne County, there were 2,167 new cases and 18 additional deaths.

The state’s vaccination coverage rate for residents 16 and older is 70.8%, the same rate reported Monday, with more than 5.73 million residents receiving at least one dose. The vaccination coverage rate for residents 5 and older is 60.7%, up 0.4% since Monday.

The United States faced its second Thanksgiving of the pandemic in better shape than the first time around, thanks to the vaccine, though some regions are seeing surges of COVID-19 cases that could get worse as families travel the country for gatherings that were impossible a year ago.

Nearly 200 million Americans are fully vaccinated. That leaves tens of millions who have yet to get a shot in the arm, some of them out of defiance. Hospitals in the cold, Upper Midwest, especially Michigan and Minnesota, are filled with COVID-19 patients who are mostly unvaccinated.

Michigan hospitals reported about 3,800 coronavirus patients at the start of the week, with 20% in intensive care units, numbers that approach the bleakest days of the pandemic’s 2020 start. The state had a seven-day new-case rate of 572 per 100,000 people Tuesday, the highest in the nation, followed by New Hampshire at 522.

— The Associated Press contributed to this story.