As of March 23, 2021,
“Michigan is amid a steep increase in weekly cases, which have tripled in a month. The state has the fourth-highest rate of new confirmed or probable cases per 100,000 in the country.
“On Tuesday, the state reported that 12 percent of tests came back positive, up from 10 percent the day before. The state now has the fourth-highest positive rate in the nation.
“Michigan also reported 16 additional COVID-19 deaths, eight of which followed a review of medical records. All of the deaths occurred in March.”...
Where vaccinations are having a dramatic effect:
According to USA Today, “’Safest place in the city': COVID-19 cases in nursing homes drop 89% as residents get vaccinated” by Ken Alltucker and James Fraser, 2/28/21,
“The number of COVID-19 cases and deaths at America's nursing homes has dropped significantly since December as millions of vaccine doses have been shot into the arms of residents and staff.
“The weekly rate of COVID-19 cases at nursing homes plummeted 89% from early December through the second week of February. By comparison, the nationwide case rate dropped 58% and remains higher than figures reported before late October.”
Disability Scoop published an article on 3/10/21, “Intellectual Disability Among Greatest COVID-19 Risk Factors, Study Finds” by Shaun Heasley, citing research showing that people with intellectual disability disabilities are at a much higher risk of dying from COVID than the general population.
“New research suggests that people with intellectual disability are about six times more likely to die if they contract COVID-19, a higher risk than almost anyone else.
“A review of 64 million medical records from individuals seen by 547 health care organizations across the U.S. between January 2019 and November 2020 finds that intellectual disability is the greatest risk factor — other than old age — associated with COVID-19 deaths.”
According to Tennessee Lookout, Tennessee was the first state in the nation to prioritize people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in its initial vaccine distribution phase.
From the article “COVID-19 numbers plummet among disabled with vaccine rollout” by Anita Wahdwani, 3/9/21:
“The numbers of new COVID infections among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and staff who care for them, decreased by more than 80 percent from December 2020 to February 2021, according to newly released data from the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities."...
”The fatality rate among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Tennessee was three-and-a-half times as high as other Tennesseans — a rate comparable only to nursing homes. DIDD programs serve a total of about 12,500 people with disabilities. At least 57 have died and 1,503 tested positive for the virus."
Treatments for COVID improve by trial and error, despite a fractured health system and missteps along the way:
USA Today summarized the progress in treating COVID-19 in this article, “Treatment for COVID-19 is better than a year ago, but it still has a long way to go” by Karen Weintraub, 3/14/21.
Dr. David Fajgenbaum is director of the CORONA (COvid19 Registry of Off-label & New Agents) Project, which has been tracking more than 400 drugs given to 270,000 COVID-19 patients. The article lists potential treatments:
"There are four basic categories of potential treatments, according to Fajgenbaum, each of which needs to be given at a different time in the disease course.
- Drugs that boost the immune response early in infection, such as monoclonal antibodies, are given while the body is mounting its response to the virus in the first week after infection. Targeted at high-risk people, these are intended to prevent their disease from getting worse.
- Antiviral drugs, such as remdesivir, target the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. These are believed to be most effective in the early stages of disease, when they can prevent the virus from taking hold and replicating inside human cells.
- Drugs such as the steroid dexamethasone that suppress the immune system are given to the sickest hospitalized patients a week or two after symptoms begin, when their biggest problem is likely to be an immune overreaction to the virus, rather than the virus itself.
- Finally, there are drugs that treat symptoms of COVID-19, such as blood clots, which can theoretically be prevented with the blood thinner heparin, though much of this research is inconclusive.
"It's important to use different drugs at different stages of the disease, Fajgenbaum and others said. Tamp down the immune system too early and the virus could wreak havoc; fail to stop an immune overreaction and the patient could die."
Read more about the complexities of finding treatments in the middle of a pandemic for patients desperate for life-saving relief.
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Update, March 25, 2021 from The Detroit Free Press
The
COVID-19 case rate is rising in Michigan. There has been a 633% rise in
hospitalizations since March 1 among people ages 30-39 and an 800%
increase among those 40-49 years old....Those 30-49 — who do not have
wide access to COVID-19 vaccines in Michigan — are being admitted to
hospitals at a faster pace than those 80 and older, the hospital
association reported...People in that 30-49 age group also are most
likely to be parents of school-age children, among whom the virus is
spreading like wildfire. Almost two-thirds of Michiganders over the age
of 65 have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine.
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