LANSING, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — Monday, officials with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) held a roundtable meeting to discuss COVID-19 with national, state and local experts.
The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss the state of COVID-19 in Michigan, and what is being done to help stop it. It included speakers such as Chief Health Executive Joneigh Khaldun, MDHHS Director Robert Gordon, and more.
To begin with, Gordon said that the COVID-19 numbers are on the rise throughout Michigan.
“No region of Michigan is immune,” Gordon said. “Every part of the state is being hit at this point. No race or ethnicity is immune. Where African-Americans had a hugely disproportionate share of our cases, today Whites, Native Americans and Latinas all have slightly higher shares.”
Despite all efforts made by Michigan residents in mitigating the spread, Gordon warns that those efforts must be kept up at this time.
“We have worked so hard against COVID and come so far from a terrible Spring,” Gordon said. “Michiganders have sacrificed, and in doing so have saved thousands of lives. We cannot tire, because the virus will not either. The tragic reality is that if we do not bring COVID under control, we are likely to see thousands more deaths here in the coming months.”
However, Gordon says one advantage at this point is that health experts know more about the virus.
He introduced Dr. Emily Martin, associate professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan, to discuss slowing the spread during colder months and the holiday season, as well as the spread through the state itself.
“The magnitude, the speed of this increase is unlike anything we’ve seen since this spring,” Martin said. “Granted, we are testing more people and different groups of people than we were in the spring and in an expanded way. However, the increased testing alone does not explain this rise. This rise supersedes any sort of adjustment you would expect based on testing patterns, so we are convinced there is a rapid change in the spread across Michigan.”
Martin is concerned when it comes to cases by region. One example is when the Detroit area was seeing high rates, while the West side of Michigan wasn’t having as many. She said there are also time periods when cases in the Detroit area were declining, while they were rising elsewhere in the State.
“What we see now is a bit of a new phenomenon,” Martin said. “We’re seeing increases across the state in all different regions. This consistent pattern of rise is being seen everywhere. Some areas are more affected than others, but we are seeing a rise everywhere. This is highly concerning.”
She also noted that there has been a demographic shift in the ages of those infected by the virus.
“Since the summer, we’ve seen a shift in younger people being infected,” Martin said. “This increase has been specifically seen in the 0-29 year age group.”
Additionally, Martin said there has also been an increase in the 30-39 year age bracket, and that this is a concern for working adults, workplaces, and employee illness.
Although those in younger demographics tend to have less severe symptoms, Martin says there is still a danger for those to spread the virus.
“Lower severity and sometimes asymptomatic infections mean people are more likely to interact, travel, gather, even if they’ve had infections,” Martin said. “We have to watch for, not only impacts on these groups, but how these groups interrelate in ways that can cause high risk for this state.”
Larger gatherings have also been linked to the spike in cases.
“Large gatherings lead to large events, and they lead to superspreading events,” Martin said. “Partly because of the size of the gathering, but partly because of the nature of the virus. This virus has spread patterns in which you can have a few people infect many they are in contact with. If those contacts are there, you’re going to have spread to everyone coming into contact.”
While Michigan allows gatherings sizes in the hundreds, one infected person can create a super spreader event.
“You can have very large numbers of infections introduced into a community resulting from very few events themselves, because they are large events,” Martin said.
In regards to winter months during the pandemic, Martin says Michigan residents should continue following all established health guidelines to help slow the spread.
“We’ve learned low-tech and accessible interventions can work to slow this, things like required masking and reducing group sizes, so when an infection is introduced into a group, it does not spread as readily and to as many other parts of the community,” Martin said. “Using these tools, especially as we go into the winter months, is going to best position us to slow the spread.”
In addition, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Dr. Thomas Frieden was part of the roundtable, who also emphasized reduced gathering sizes.
“The more people you have, the more risk you have that one of them is going to be, not just shedding virus, but shedding lots of virus,” Frieden said when asked about gatherings. “If you happen to get a person who is highly infectious in a place where there a lot of people, you’re going to get a lot of infections, and then all those people will have a lot of infections. You’re going to end up having cascading infections.”
However, he noted that, with some exceptions, outdoor gatherings tend to be safer than indoor ones, and enclosed spaces present higher risk when more people are involved. That can also be altered by factors such as how many people are masked up and what the ventilation is like.
He also touched on the quarantine period for those who have been infected or exposed, and addressed concerns of those who choose not to self-isolate after a confirmed test.
“Testing is not a get-out-of-quarantine-free card,” Frieden said. “You can test negative in the morning and be highly infectious in the afternoon. What we know is that if you’ve been exposed, between two and fourteen days later you’re likely to get sick, if you get sick. This is one of those situations where you’d like to do comprehensive testing and tracing. You’d like to know who was infected, what the web is. It’s an outbreak investigation, it’s not a case investigation. It’s rare that there’s just one secondary case. It happens, but usually when there’s smoke, there’s fire, where there’s one spread, there’s more. It’s a web, it’s not linear. You want to find where that web has spread.”
He said that for these reasons, those who have tested must quarantine for the recommended time period. However, he said that different ways of encouraging exposed individuals to quarantine should be explored. He says that this can be done by exploring ways to increase testing response time, as well as figuring out a more robust alert system.
Frieden also noted that Michigan has one of the best health departments in the country, and should continue to explore ways to make itself a model state during the pandemic.
One question that Dr. Joneigh Khaldun directed to Dr. Martin was in regards to public perception of wearing masks, especially considering those who believe a mask doesn’t help with prevention. Martin said that in one example of data, positive cases among medical personnel is infrequent despite being in the most contact with people who are infected.
Martin says this trend is due to those medical workers using personal protective equipment (PPE).
“These are people that are given the highest dose of exposure, but not getting a lot of infections because they’re wearing PPE,” Martin said. “They’re wearing masks. We have a fairly low-tech and low-cost intervention to protect people. In general, I think that’s the strongest case for masks.”
However, she made distinction between masks that work well and those that don’t when preventing exposure.
“It doesn’t have to be an N95, it doesn’t have to be a surgical-grade mask to work,” Martin said. “It can be blocked by a simple and straightforward mask. The masks I wear are string and a piece of cloth, a pretty straightforward mask.”
She also pointed out that the areas of the country with an uptick in mask usage have seen lower case rates, which she said is another indicator of effectiveness.
Overall, Dr. Joneigh Khaldun and the guest speakers said Michigan residents should continue following all health guidelines, and that taking these steps will help in the long run for public health.
“I do feel a sense of hope, because we’ve got some of the best experts in the country right here in the State of Michigan,” Khaldun said. “I think we have what it takes, we brought that curve down in the spring, and I truly believe that we can do it again. We’ve had a little bit of time to prepare for this next surge that we’re seeing now. For everyone out there, I’d say continue to be vigilant, we can do these basic things. You don’t have to do everything, but if you can just wear your mask, wash your hands and watch your distance, we will all be in a better place.”
Fox 17 hosted a live viewing of this roundtable meeting, which lasted almost two hours. Those who are interested can watch the video at this link.
