Detroit City Wire

Weekly COVID-19 cases in Michigan nursing homes declined 91% from December 28 to Monday, coupled with an 83% decline amongst nursing home staff. 

Roughly a third of Michigan’s coronavirus deaths (5,515) have come from care facilities, while 90% of those coronavirus deaths have come from those over the age of 60. So far, 79 care-facility employees have died as well. 

Those rates of decline improve upon the 65% rate of the decline in the entire state. The exact numbers were a decline from 827 new cases with care-facility residents at the end of December to just 73 last week, and a decline from 738 to 125 in new staff cases over the same time span. 

Throughout the state, the average new cases a day went down from 6,500 to 850. The percentage of positive coronavirus vaccine tests also came down from 13% to just 3%.

Experts say the coronavirus vaccine is the reason for the decline. 

“I think vaccines had a huge role to play,” said Dr. Teena Chopra, an infectious disease professor at Wayne State University who is in charge of infection control for the eight hospitals of the Detroit Medical Center. 

She also said it was right to vaccinate senior citizens first. Michigan state government officials attributed the decline to the vaccine as well and also to restrictions on indoor dining. 

CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens also aided the state government in distributing the vaccine. Over 200,000 doses were distributed in total throughout Michigan.

A total of 1.2 million people in Michigan had the first dose, and 652,000 had the second dose since December. Those numbers include 15% of the population over 16 and 37% of people in the 65-and-over age bracket. 

The surge in vaccinations was coupled with an increase in regulations on in-person meetings at nursing homes and care facilities.