Genesee County, MI—After a month-long spike, COVID cases in Flint and Genesee County are on the decline, according to a recent report by the Flint Center for Health Equity Solutions.
Cases in Genesee County decreased from 4,065 to 1,966 for the week of Jan. 24. In Flint, COVID cases dropped from 788 to 354 for the same week.
Testing positivity rates also decreased from 32.7% to 27.9%, on par with Michigan’s overall positivity rate of 27.1%.
Looking at data from the previous two months, COVID cases doubled from December 2021 to January 2022. In December, FCHES reported a total of 10,846 compared to 20,800 cases in January—a 92% increase.
January was “far and away” the most cases recorded in a month for Genesee County, Rick Sadler, a geographer and associate professor at MSU, said.
“Omicron has been so infectious that I think most places that experience it see their highest ever case counts in the month that follows the onset,” Sadler said.
December 2021 had the second-highest COVID cases on record, and November 2021 the third highest at 9,161 cases.
Flint rose from having the thirteenth highest case rate in December to having the sixth highest in January.
As of Jan. 2, 57.8% of County residents ages five and older have received their first vaccine dose while 52.4% are fully vaccinated.