DETROIT (WXYZ) — During a White House COVID task force virtual press conference held Wednesday, officials said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has teams on the ground in Michigan amid the rising cases in the state.
“We are working closely with the State of Michigan and the state health officials there," said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC. "We have CDC teams on the ground, working to assess outbreaks in correctional facilities. We’re working to facilitate increased testing that is happening on the ground in the context of youth sports."
Dr. Walensky also said they are doing more surveillance and sequencing to dive deeper into what is happening with the B.1.1.7 and other variants.
"We're working with the state to try to encourage that areas that have increased amount of outbreaks that we can really see, the state is surging vaccine supply to those areas."
She added later, "I would advocate for stronger mitigation strategies … to sort of decrease the community activity, ensure mask wearing, and we’re working closely with the state to try and work toward that."
Andy Slavitt, White House Senior Advisor for COVID-19 Response, said they are in close contact with Michigan through the CDC and through direct conversations with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer about available resources that could be helpful.
"Nothing is off the table in those conversations in terms of the kind of support that we can provide," said Slavitt.
Michigan has reported thousands of new cases per day over the past week, and there are now more than 100,000 active cases of the virus in Michigan, the highest its been since mid-November when a partial shutdown was announced.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also reported that as of April 6, there were 1,998 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant confirmed in the state.
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