Lansing, MI–The state of Michigan launched a new online dashboard to help people better visualize COVID-19 data trends in the state.
Publicly available case, death, and test data is analyzed and represented on the dashboard by level of risk of community spread.
The trends shown in the dashboard play a role in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s six-phase MI Safe Start plan to reopen Michigan’s economy.
Data shows the Detroit region of the state, which includes Genesee County, treading the line between a medium risk area and a medium-high risk area.
Medium-high risk areas remain in phase three of the MI Safe Start plan, which includes reopening some sectors of the economy that are deemed lower-risk like construction, manufacturing and real estate with strict safety measures in place.
Medium risk areas move on to the fourth phase, in which small gatherings are allowed to resume with social distancing, and retail is allowed to reopen with capacity limits in place. Genesee County is currently operating under phase four guidelines.
The region has a seven-day average of 4.8% of tests coming back positive and a seven-day average of 19.5 new confirmed cases a day per million people.
Genesee County has a seven-day average of 3.2% of tests coming back positive and 12.9 new cases per million per day.
Medium risk regions are defined as having a seven-day average of 3% to 10% of tests coming back positive and seven to 20 new cases per day per million people.
Medium-high risk areas have a seven-day average of 10% to 20% of tests coming back positive and 20 to 40 new cases per day per million people.
The six phases of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s MI Safe Start plan.Areas of the state reach the fifth phase of the reopening plan – which includes reopening restaurant dining rooms and bars and allowing K-12 schools and institutions of higher education to return to in-person instruction – when they are deemed a low risk area by having a seven-day average of less than 3% of tests coming back positive and fewer than 7 new cases per day per million people.
The sixth and final phase of Whitmer’s plan – which will mark the end of social distancing and the return of large gatherings – will likely not be reached until there is a vaccine for COVID-19 widely available.
In the event that cases begin trending upwards again, Whitmer has previously said the state may have to move backwards into earlier phases of the plan.
The return of a strict stay-at-home order in which all non-essential businesses are closed would be caused by areas of the state being deemed high risk, where the seven-day average shows more than 20% of tests coming back positive and there are 40 or more new cases per day per million of people.
Michigan had 55,104 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state Tuesday, and 5,266 people have died from the virus.
Of the confirmed cases, 1,964 are in Genesee County, and 245 people in the county have died from the virus.