NEWBERRY, MI— The highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID has substantially increased the number of infections in Luce, Mackinac, Alger and Schoolcraft counties, but vaccinations are keeping the number of deaths down.
The LMAS District Health Department says in June, before the variant took hold, only seven cases were added in the district and there were no breakthrough infections. From March 19 to November 5, 2021 there have been 314 breakthrough infections of COVID in fully vaccinated people. Of those infections, 281 have occurred between August 1 and November 5. The beginning of August is when the Delta Variant started taking hold in the region.
The LMAS counties have added 1,708 cases of COVID between August 1 and November 5 of this year, and 84 percent were not fully vaccinated. In that time period 10 people died, and eight were not fully vaccinated.
Hospitalizations of cases during the August to November time period in the four counties included just 0.5 percent of those fully vaccinated.
