GENESEE CO. (WJRT) – A data deficit is hitting Michigan as health officials find it more difficult to accurately track the amount of COVID-19 case.
“What we’re seeing, as far as numbers, is an underestimation of the number of cases that are out there,” Flint physician Dr. Bobby Makkamala said.
With additional access to at-home test kits, Makkamala says less people are likely to inform their health department when they do test positive.
“It’s not the kind of thing that’s being tabulated at a county health department or a state sort of number to quantify exactly how many people are testing positive, like when they used to go somewhere to get tested,” he said.
In Genesee County, the health department’s epidemiologist, Mattew Peters sees less positive cases from at-home testing every day, but he said that doesn’t mean the cases aren’t there.
“If they do have a positive at home test, it’s really critical for us to understand what COVID is looking like in our county at the moment, and how many cases we have,” Peters said. “That way it can help us predict if we’re seeing potentially the presence of a new variant, or if we need to look out for hospitals becoming fuller.
Michigan is among several states that only report COVID data once a week. On top of at home testing gaps, the inconsistent data continues to make predicting a surge difficult for counties.
“I can’t say that the amount of cases we’ve seen in the county over the last couple of months has been steadily increasing,” he said. “Whether or not that will continue to be the case into the summer is difficult to say.”
