DETROIT – Michigan’s largest hospital system has issued a warning: The battle against COVID in Metro Detroit isn’t even close to over.
Beaumont Health doctors said the region is now a hot spot and hospitals are filling up quickly. They referred to it as a 4th surge.
“I’m here because over about the last 4-5 days we’ve seen a considerable increase in our hospital COVID numbers,” said Beaumont Health System Medical Director of Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Dr. Nick Gilpin.
Read: 7 takeaways from expert’s Metro Detroit COVID update: ‘I consider this our 4th surge’
Gilpin said the hospital system has about 400 patients with COVID.
“The percentage of tests positive in the tri-county Metro Detroit area has also increased and is now around 11.5%, which signals that we are in a period of substantial to high community COVID transmission,” Gilpin said.
Gilpin said about 65% to 70% are unvaccinated.
“For the last couple of months, starting in about late August, early September, we’ve been experiencing this slow burn. This slow, steady increase with a very shallow slope of increases of COVID patients in our hospitals,” Gilpin said.
Why is there what doctors consider to be a fourth suge?
“We still have a significant proportion of unvaccinated in the community. We know that cooler weather that we’ve been experiencing over the past couple of weeks creates conditions that are more favorable for the virus to transmit. We’re also seeing that the largest case increases are happening right now among school-age kids. That’s kids who are between 10-18 years old,” Gilpin said.
Gilpin said they are also seeing a high increase of COVID cases in nursing homes. He also said people are getting more relaxed and that’s causing more cases to spread.