GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A positive president, proving the pandemic isn’t over. President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 Thursday morning, and many Michiganders are finding themselves right there with him.
The Omicron variant still has a grip on the United States.
As of Wednesday, in the 13 counties that make Region Six in west Michigan, 122 people were hospitalized with COVID-19. Eight of them were in the ICU.
“I think this is something that isn’t going away. We’ll be dealing with COVID for many years,” Jerry Evans, Region Six’s medical director, told FOX 17. “Now it’s starting more with headaches, body aches, sore throat. Not as many people are losing their taste and smell.”
The following Michigan Department of Health and Human Services map shows COVID-19’s impact on the state’s healthcare system, which, as you can see, is mostly green:
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s map is red because it indicates the spread of COVID-19:
“We think that the numbers are actually much higher than the numbers that we’re reporting, but we can only report what we test,” Evans explained. “We’re not testing nearly the number of people we did before. A lot of people are doing home tests and aren’t reporting it.”
President Biden is double-boosted against COVID.
“That’s the one concern is his age,” Evans said. “But most people, even in their 70’s and 80’s are doing okay with this. They don’t necessarily feel well, and it depends a lot on what other medical problems you have.”
Evans says the best line of defense against severe COVID-19 symptoms is the vaccine.
“It has proved to be a very safe and fairly reliable vaccine, so the science is pretty incredible,” Evans added.
Evans told FOX 17 that about half the amount of people infected with COVID-19 at local hospitals are in their 70’s and 80’s.
He says the good news with the current variant is that it does not cause severe illness for the majority of those infected.