Oakland County leads Michigan in new COVID-19 school outbreaks

The number of new COVID-19 outbreaks at Michigan schools dropped this week to 76 clusters, but still represented 428 new cases statewide, data from state health officials showed on Monday. 

Oakland County, which has a countywide mask mandate, led the state in the highest number of new outbreaks with 10 schools reporting cases, including an outbreak involving Lawrence Technological University's football team, which has 12 cases.

Across the state, Shepherd High School in Isabella County had the largest outbreak with 31 student cases while Byron Center High School in Kent County has 26 cases involving both students and staff.

Last week, the state reported 101 schools with new outbreaks and a total of  858 new cases at K-12 schools in Michigan. 

With 25 new COVID-19 outbreaks the week of Oct. 11, Macomb County led the state in the number of schools with new COVID-19 outbreaks, but on Monday only one new outbreak was reported there.

Colleges experiencing ongoing outbreaks since Sept. 13 include Northwood University in Midland with 49 cases involving students and Grand Valley State University with 37 cases.

Since Oct. 11, Alma College has had 43 cases involving students. During the week of Oct. 17, the University of Michigan reported 34 preliminary cases on its dashboard; Michigan State University reported 10 cases.

Michigan added 7,856 cases and 56 deaths from COVID-19 on Monday, including totals from Saturday and Sunday.

The latest figures from the state Department of Health and Human Services push the overall totals to 1,112,490 confirmed cases and 21,918 deaths since the virus was first detected in the state in March 2020.

The state averaged 2,618 cases per day over the three days. Of the latest deaths reported, 29 were identified during a vital records review, state health officials noted. 

jchambers@detroitnews.com