Michigan surpassed 8,000 COVID-19 cases on Saturday, the highest single-day report in the state since early December.
State statistics showed 8,413 cases recorded on Saturday, which is a significant uptick over the 563 reported eight weeks ago, according to CNN. That is the highest number since Dec. 7, when there were 9,350 daily cases reported.
In total, Michigan has had more than 760,000 cases and more than 17,000 deaths associated with the virus. Nearly 2 million people in the state have been vaccinated.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, blamed upticks in her state on spring break travel, claiming that state residents were flying into states with looser lockdown restrictions and bringing it back to Michigan.
EASTER BRINGS BUSIEST TRAVEL WEEKEND SINCE START OF PANDEMIC
“No. 1 state with the most variants is Florida. The No. 2 state is Michigan right now. Anyone who lives here, there is a lot of travel back and forth, and those are the numbers,” Whitmer said, according to a report by WDIV.
Whitmer also encouraged schools to remain closed after spring break and said the focus should be on getting as many people vaccinated as possible.
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Michigan is among 21 states that have seen rises in COVID-19 cases, despite having had some of the strictest lockdown measures since the start of the pandemic last year. Florida, Texas, and Mississippi, which have led the nation in large-scale reopenings, have not been part of the group seeing recent upticks in cases.
Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and an adviser to President Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force, said the Upper Midwest is seeing a fourth surge in COVID-19 and said the uptick in Michigan cases is a wake-up call.
