The Allegan County Health Department has reported today that two more people in the county have died as a result of the Coronavirus in the past week.
As of Friday, Aug. 27, the death toll was listed at 160, but now it’s 162. The county’s death toll since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 had remained at 158 for about two months over the summer. Eight new hospitalizations have been reported over the past two weeks, even though there are hopes that the Delta variant of the virus is peaking.
The virus positivity rate in testing has jumped to 13.4 percent, up from just over 12% last week and up from only 3% a couple of months ago. Though the daily average of new cases over seven days was estimated at just 2.3 in late June, it has increased to 24.9 as of Friday.
A total of 330 cases has been reported in the county over the past two weeks. There now have been 278 hospitalizations from Covid since the pandemic began. The number of tests is 11,564 and 11,342 people have been characterized as recovered.
The Allegan County Health Department on Aug. 18 issued a directive for all public schools in the county to mandate children in grades K-6 to wear masks in the classrooms because they are not eligible for vaccinations. Parents from every school district in the county have been lodging protests.
Further troubles surfaced this week after the Health Department issued an update in which it was stated that those parents who fail to comply and allow their children to attend schools while infected could face court issues and even parental custody consequences.
State Rep. Steve Johnson (R-Wayland) and some outraged parents since have maintained the letter was threatening. Johnson has called for the health department officer to be fired.
