MARQUETTE, MI-- Marquette County is in the “high transmission” category for COVID-19 but fewer people are hospitalized, thanks to vaccines.
Doctor Bob Lorinser is Medical Director of the Marquette County Health Department. He says the county is averaging more than ten cases a day. Hospitals are treating COVID patients, but it’s not like the surge in November, when elderly people and those with increased risk were vulnerable and the vaccine wasn’t yet available.
“The hospitals are seeing an uptick in COVID cases. There have been deaths from this, but not to the extent that we were having back in November or April.”
Lorinser notes the Delta variant is likely the dominant strain of the virus that’s spreading in the U.S. and the world right now. It’s more contagious, which means the six-foot, 15-minutes rule may not apply.
He says vaccinated people need to be far less concerned about the variant.
“If you take all the hospitalizations and the deaths and you just look at what percent of them were unvaccinated, it’s by far the majority.”
Different from a “booster” shot, a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine is available for those who didn’t respond well to the first two shots.
“Those are people with, say, organ transplants or are on certain medications that weaken their immune systems. Those are the people that are approved by the FDA and CDC to have another dose,” Lorinser says.
Boosters are used when vaccines become less effective, but Lorinser says the U.S. hasn’t yet reached that point.
Data shows residents are protected from the virus tenfold if they’ve been vaccinated, and getting the vaccine after someone has already had COVID doubles the chance they won’t get it again.
