After several weeks of plateauing data, the number of new COVID-19 cases reported in St. Clair County took a big jump by the end …
After several weeks of plateauing data, the number of new COVID-19 cases reported in St. Clair County took a big jump by the end of this week.
There were 11 new cases reported Friday,22 new cases Thursday and 13 new cases Wednesday, compared to between one and eight additional cases reported daily over the previous week.
As of Friday, there were 459 total cases in the county, with 83 active cases and 30 deaths.
Dr. Annette Mercatante, medical health director for the St. Clair County Health Department, said during a weekly question-and-answer session on Facebook Thursday, there were two primary reasons for the sudden spike. One may be a data dump, she said, while some facilities caught up in reporting or downloading cases into a larger COVID tracking system.
“The second is we’re aware of a facility outbreak, one of our nursing homes, where they had quite a few cases documented because of their own screening and testing earlier this week,” Mercatante said.
Coronavirus data from long-term care and nursing home facilities is made available through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
As of Friday, four of the five facilities reporting from St. Clair County had 32 total cases combined. At 17 cases, most had come from Medilodge of St. Clair.
The rise in new daily reported cases in East China Township, where that facility is located, also corresponded with the larger count countywide this week. On Thursday, there were 39 COVID cases showing on a county map for East China. That was up from 21 cases attributed to the township as of last weekend.
On Thursday, Mercatante took a question about the rise in East China, confirming, “That’s because the facilities are included in East China.
