South Kent News

A new metric on Michigan’s official website offers a different view of the impact of COVID-19 on health care since the beginning of the pandemic.

The new metric looks at emergency room visits that have been linked to the coronavirus as a percentage of all emergency room visits, according to coverage by Michigan Capitol Confidential. The state’s website displays emergency room visits for coronavirus symptoms as a seven-day average.

During the peak of the pandemic in Michigan in late March, 5.2% of emergency room visits in the state involved symptoms matching those for the coronavirus, according to Michigan Capitol Confidential. By the beginning of October, only 0.7% of emergency room visits involved individuals reporting symptoms that are associated with the virus.

The last time that the percentage of emergency room visits involving symptoms fitting the coronavirus infection exceeded 1% was May 10, according to Michigan Capitol Confidential.

At the beginning of October, Michigan had 82 COVID-19 cases per million residents, with a test positivity rate of 3.4%, according to the MI Safe Start Map. By Oct. 7, the percentage of positive tests had risen slightly to 3.5%, while the number of active cases per million residents had fallen to 79.5.

In the same time frame, the percentage of emergency room visits related to coronavirus symptoms had risen slightly to 0.8%, according to the MI Safe Start Map.

At the beginning of October, the Upper Peninsula -- which had a late start, in terms of viral spread, compared with the rest of the state -- had the highest number of cases of any of the state’s eight regions, with 311 active coronavirus cases per million residents, according to the MI Safe Start Map.

With only 34 cases per million people, the Traverse City region currently has the lowest case count in the state.