Doctors: We're Not In The Clear Yet, Two Years After 1st COVID-19 Cases In Michigan

(CBS DETROIT) - It's been two years since COVID-19 was first detected in Michigan, so how are hospitals doing now and what are doctors saying about the future?

"We have identified the first presumptive positive case of Coronavirus in Michigan," Said Governor Whitmer during a March 10th  press conference, in 2020.

Since that time we've seen many first, including a state shut down of businesses and schools, masks mandates, and an industry that's experienced a crisis like non other.

"We were really handicapped in terms of our ability to recognize cases in a timely fashion, we did not have enough tests and the turnaround time we had for the test was slow often took several days," said Beaumont Health's Dr. Nick Gilpin, medical director of infection prevention and epidemiology.

Dr. Gilpin says they also didn't have useful treatments and lack of PPE as cases and death grew from this virus we all knew very little about. The moral with healthcare staff was extremely low.

"Questions like, are we going to get through this, is this going to cripple us permanently as a healthcare system," Dr. Gilpin said.

Soon they adapted to this difficult new norm, with curbside testing, telemedicine, and of course vaccines.

Now with case numbers coming down, and mandates and masks being lifted, is the pandemic over?

"My answer to that question is no, so world wide we're approaching about a half billion of cases that we know of, in the united states that number is around 80 million and we're still having more than 40,000 new cases per day," said Dr. Gilpin.

At Beaumont he says there are fewer than 90 COVID hospitalizations, the lowest since August of 2021. However, he says with not everyone being vaccinated and some never having the virus to build up immunity there's still a chance for community spread and new variants.

"I've said it before I'll say it again we just gotta keep our foot on the gas and we gotta stay laser focus to try and prevent that next thing from happening," Gilpin said.

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