Journalism junior Maddie Monroe is handed her vaccine card and a sticker after getting the COVID-19 vaccine on March 29, 2021.
The Ingham County Health Department, or ICHD, sent out a release on Wednesday morning, urging vacationers to take precautions if they decide to travel during this time.
Though traveling is obviously discouraged, the ICHD urges those who do travel to:
COVID-19 cases are still rising throughout the county, state and country and many people are not vaccinated yet. All Michigan residents ages 16 and up will be eligible April 5.
“We understand that people are ready to get back to normal and start traveling again,” said Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail in the release. “However, COVID-19 cases are surging in our county. Health experts across the country are gravely concerned about what we may see following spring break. Delaying travel is the safest course of action. If travel is not avoidable, testing and quarantine are strongly encouraged.”
There are a total of 17,951 cases and 295 deaths in Ingham County as of Wednesday, according to ICHD. Of those, 2,275 are active illnesses and 15,381 have recovered. 111 of these cases are confirmed hospitalizations, 103 reside on a regular hospital floor and eight are in the intensive care unit, with nine hooked up to ventilators.
The case fatality rate is as low as 1.6% and it has gone down significantly since January – 58 to 16.
The area seeing the most COVID-19 cases, ranging between 4,141-4,150, is East Lansing, under the zip code 48823. This zip code has also tallied the most deaths, at 58.
16% of county cases are coming from people ages 10-19 and 30% from people ages 20-29; however, only 2% of reported deaths are from the younger than 40 category.
In terms of campus-related cases, MSU has brought in a total of 3,780 cases between July 27 and March 29.
Michigan has reached approximately 746,351 cases and 17,119 deaths, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, or MDHHS.
The U.S. as a whole has reached more than 30.2 million cases, with over 548,000 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.
However, there have been approximately 150 million vaccines distributed across the U.S. in counter combating efforts. Similarly, there have been 71,873 total first, second and single doses received by the health department, 60,937 of those have been administered to residents, and 10,420 more have been shipped to the ICHD this week.
"We're getting much closer to that bar that I always want to be at, which is I want to be administering everything that we've gotten previous weeks," Vail said.
83,207 out of 169,199 Ingham residents have received at least their first dose, 32,170 of those are ages 65-plus – which is roughly 81.6% of all Ingham senior residents. The health department's goal is to vaccinate 70% of Ingham's 16 and older population in 2021.
The MDHHS is offering rapid COVID-19 testing at a drive-through site on the Ingham Intermediate School District’s campus in Mason for people post travel on Sunday, April 11 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday, April 14 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Results will be available 15-30 minutes after your test via text or email. You can register here.
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