South Kent News

The Kent County Health Department expects COVID-19 cases to continue to rise in the county, even though cases statewide have been slowly declining, WoodTV reported.

As of May 13, there are 2,446 positive coronavirus cases and 47 deaths in Kent County, according to Michigan.gov. The health department believes the increase is partially due to the amount of testing that has been done.

“The amount of testing has increased and so we would expect that we’re going to see additional cases, but it’s also true that the actual prevalence of the illness is increasing in the community as well,” Dr. Adam London of the Kent County Health Department told WoodTV.

London said that some predictions have West Michigan peaking around mid-May, but others show later dates.

“If we assume that everyone maintains the status quo with sheltering in place and hygiene and social distancing, then we’re looking at a peak probably [in mid-May]. Some models have it later into June, and that’s a peak that would seriously challenge our hospitals,” London told WoodTV.

Dr. Matt Biersack, the chief medical officer of Mercy Health, said that it has had a drop in cases coming in for inpatient services.

“A lot of our activity over the last few weeks has been geared toward planning and starting to really see our first patients who have COVID-19 and learn from those experiences,” Biersack told WoodTV.

There is no way to know how many cases there will be at the peak, nor when the peak will for sure happen, but the county's health officials are preparing for the worst.

“We know exactly how many ICU beds we can turn out before our capacity is reached. We know how many ventilators we have,” Dr. Joshua Kooistra, chief medical officer for Spectrum Health, told WoodTV. “We have a lot of capacity to accommodate a surge, if one occurs and when one occurs."

The health department believes that if there are changes to social-distancing protocols, citizens will need to remain vigilant at least through the end of the year.