Detroit Facing Another Uncertain Challenge As It Wrestles With COVID-19 Case Surge
Detroit, a city that has survived so much over the past decade, including the nation’s largest ever municipal bankruptcy, has now become a hotspot for the spread of coronavirus, leading the state of Michigan, which itself is now third in the U.S. for reported cases behind New York and New Jersey.
City health department data shows 1,804 residents of the city are afflicted with the disease and 50 have died. According to U.S. Census Bureau information, Detroit is 78 percent African American and has the highest percentage of Blacks of any city in the nation. By comparison, New Orleans, another rising hotspot, has 1,480 cases and 86 deaths.
The incidents are so bad that even the city’s chief of police, James Craig, has become infected. Two other members of the police force have died and 20 percent are quarantined, according to local newsweekly the Metro Times. A state legislator, Isaac Robinson, 44, died Sunday of COVID-19 complications.
People aged 50 to 59 led cases at 19.74 percent and women had 52 percent of infections. The most affected areas of the city are on its west side according to city mapping data, with a few concentrations on the east side. The city saw an extreme jump in reported cases in just the last week as cases began their surge.
However, at a press conference on Monday, Mayor Mike Duggan said a drive through testing site at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit has opened and at least 1,000 people have been tested. He said that the surge in reported cases comes from better testing availability.
“This virus is going to continue to grow in the city for a period of weeks,” said Duggan, who was optimistic because of the increased amount of testing. “The Detroit positives will continue to grow because we are doing far more testing.”
Duggan said that he wants to use every available resource to get the entire city’s 672,000 residents tested.
“We have to make these tests available to every single Detroiter, regardless of whether you’re a doctor, even if you don’t have insurance, even if you don’t have a car. And so now that we have worked out the testing protocols and we have the labs, we’re now going to make sure that we reach everybody,” he said.
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But regionwide, meaning Southeast Michigan, there has been an explosion in cases. The city’s infection rate is 205 per 100,000 residents, as compared to 132 per 100,000 in the rest of Wayne County, where Detroit is located and 47 per 100,000 all over the state, according to the Detroit Free Press. Overall, the state has 5,486 cases with 132 deaths.
“Southeast Michigan is burning right now,” Dr. Teena Chopra, medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at the Detroit Medical Ceneter’s Harper University Hospital told the Free Press. "Our hospital systems are being overrun at this point. They are all struggling. ... We are under-resourced and we need to make sure that we get more help. You know, we are asking, all of us are asking, for help. And the governor knows that."
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has already issued a temporary stay-at-home order for Michiganders, requested and received a declaration of a coronavirus disaster from President Trump on Saturday. She also accepted a recommendation from the Army Corps of Engineers to use Detroit’s TCF Center, its largest convention facility, as a 900-bed facility, funded by FEMA.
But the healthcare system is racing against time and doctors and nurses fear they are running out of enough personal protective equipment to use with patients.
"Detroit is already on a very steep curve," said Chopra. "We will be seeing more and more patients in days to come. And you know, this is going to get really worse before it gets better."
The state received 112,800 N95 masks from the Strategic National Stockpile, and additional shipment of 8,000 masks on the way, the Free Press reported. As many as one million more masks could be headed to Michigan, according to the office of Sen. Gary Peters.
Currently, there are 1,622 ventilators in the state, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Also, 2,387 more licensed beds statewide were added, bringing the state total to 27,762 hospital beds, according to the agency.
Despite that, Detroit must still adhere to social distancing guidelines set up to mitigate the spread of the virus and, like other cities, is enforcing them when crowds gather.
“We have got to practice the social distancing, we just have to,” said Duggan. “How fast this disease spreads right now is controlled by only one thing and that’s your behavior.”
