COVID transmission is so high that all of Michigan should mask up, CDC suggests

Aug. 31—COVID-19 transmission rates have increased to the point that the entire state of Michigan should now wear a mask when indoors in public, according to guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC recommends that anyone living in a county that has "substantial" or "high" COVID-19 transmission wear a mask when they are indoors or even when outdoors if it's not possible to social distance.

In Michigan, that's every county.

That's a big change from the beginning of August, when more than half of Michigan counties were considered to have "low" or "moderate" transmission. Low and moderate are the lower ratings on the CDC's scale where masks aren't considered necessary.

That difference is largely attributable to the delta variant, said Dr. Justin Skrzynski, an internal medicine physician who has been overseeing a COVID floor at Beaumont Royal Oak. He estimated the delta variant is as much as eight times more contagious than the original virus.

The best ways to bring transmission down, Skrzynski added, is for people to wear masks, following distancing measures and lowering capacity in public spaces.

"That's how we limit person-to-person spread," he said. "Part of the frustration is that this comes right when we were ready to get back to normal. There was a ton of optimism with the vaccine rollout where we thought we might have a summer that looks like the normal we are used to and want to return to, but we aren't going to get there now without a return to masks and distancing."

Skrzynski said that vaccines are the best way to create long-term protection for everyone. But in two-dose regimens, it can take a month and a half for a person to get both shots and be far enough out for the immune system to have had time to form a response. Masks and distancing provide a more immediate solution.

Others are also encouraging people to wear masks. Dr. Pino D. Colone, president of the Michigan State Medical Society, encouraged people to wear masks in public regardless of their vaccination status.

"Doing so will help slow the spread of the delta variant, prevent further outbreaks, keep schools open, and ultimately, save lives. Put simply, it's the right thing to do," Colone said in a news release Monday.

"And while it remains true that getting vaccinated is the very best way to stay protected against COVID-19, wearing a mask also makes a big difference in reducing the transmission of the virus, which will go a long way towards further protecting our state's most vulnerable residents, including all who are still too young to receive the COVID-19 vaccine."

Trends around U.S.

Michigan transmission rates match much of the rest of the country. As of Monday, 31 other states also have such high transmission that those entire states are recommended to wear a mask indoors. Another seven have only a single county below that rate.

There are only three counties east of the Mississippi River that fall below "substantial" transmission rates. Putnam County in Illinois, Washington County in Maine and Florence County in Wisconsin, which is on the border with the Upper Peninsula, all have "moderate" transmission rates; no county in that part of the country has a "low" rate.

There are a select few areas across the U.S. that continue to have low rates of transmission, including in rural Nebraska and Texas. But the CDC considers nearly 97% of all counties to have at least a "substantial" level of transmission. Like in Michigan, that has been a rapid change from earlier in the summer.

Lynn Sutfin, a spokeswoman for Michigan'sDepartment of Health and Human Services, did not say Monday whether department officials were considering implementing any sort of restriction to limit the spread of the virus but noted that masks and vaccines are the best way to limit serious illness.

Michigan has seen 946,698 COVID-19 cases and 20,256 deaths since March 2020. On Monday, the state health department reported 5,020 new infections over the last three days. Over the past seven days, the state has tracked 13,304 new cases, up 24% from the tally the seven previous days.

Last week, 8.9% of Michigan's COVID-19 tests brought positive results, a 17-week high.

State data shows there is a limited number of hospital beds available. In Metro Detroit, only about a fifth of all hospital beds are open. In five of the state's eight emergency preparedness regions, fewer than a quarter of all ICU beds are open. Cases, hospitalizations and the percentage of COVID-19 tests with positive results have all been trending upward for longer than a month.

Avoiding another surge

If Michiganians wore masks properly, got vaccinated and followed distancing protocols, Skrzynski estimated that a month from now, case numbers would perhaps be low enough that officials could look at doing away with masks again. If things continue as they are, the state faces another surge.

Numbers aren't yet to the point they reached last fall, when cases peaked. Then, over 12 days in October, Michigan moved from 837 adults hospitalized with the virus to 1,313. The state ended up hitting its fall COVID peak near November. That surge eventually inspired Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to institute restrictions on indoor dining at restaurants.

This spring, when the alpha variant made much of Michigan a virus hotspot, Michigan jumped from 855 adults hospitalized with the virus to 1,404 in 11 days in March. This time, the surge is building more slowly, but it's still growing. In the last 13 days, the number of adults hospitalized with the virus moved from 845 to 1,137.

Skrzynski said experts are concerned that if this happening in warm months when people can be outside and distanced from each other, it will be worse when cold weather forces people inside again.

"It doesn't need to be that bad because there is a moderate solution to this. We don't need vaccine mandates. We don't need more lockdowns," he said. "People just need to make the right decisions, choose to mask and be smart. That is how we can avert that surge, and it is not a tremendous ask."

hharding@detroitnews.com

cmauger@detroitnews.com

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