Michigan as a state reached its coronavirus new cases peak in early April, but that wasn’t the case everywhere. Counties in the state have experienced many different curves and infection rates Otsego county is one example of an area diverging from the overall norm.
Despite having a relatively small population Otsego county has had one of the higher infection rates among Michigan counties.
Doctor Joshua Meyerson is the health director of the Health Department of Northwest Michigan, the department’s jurisdiction includes Antrim, Charlevoix, Emmet, and Otsego. He said that part of hte reason Otsego had such high numbers was because of how early the virus reached the community.
“Because they had had that early virus enter the county they saw more community based transmission, before the shelter-in-place order, and probably related to that they had an outbreak in a long term care facility which accounts for a large number of cases in that community as well.” he said.
Meyerson said the stay at home order likely prevented some of the other nearby counties from experiencing similar community based transmission. He said it is difficult to fully grasp the reach of coronavirus within not only Otsego but also other Northern counties, especially early on. Meyerson said numbers don’t tell the whole story, and that lack of test availability likely deflated the numbers of Otsego and other counties in the early stages of the outbreak.
He said, “I think early on some of our low numbers were a result of difficulty getting testing, and we know that right, there were probably many more people infected than the ones we identified, and some differences among counties could also be related to the availability of testing.”
Meyerson said his department is doing everything it can to improve testing capacity. As testing capacity has increased it has become more clear that the community is on the downward side of the curve, they have been since late April. He said going forward having the test capacity high is going to help mitigate increased risk for the area since it sees more traffic in the summer months.