Why Is Michigan Such An Outlier?

I'm continuing to look at the COVID trends for individual US states, because it's plain that the claims of people like Drs Fauci and Walensky that there is a "national" surge in cases are highly misleading. Any national increase is actually driven by a minority of states whose patterns don't reflect those of most others. Michigan's case, shown above, is a good example. CNN reports

Michigan reported 8,413 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, bringing the state's total pandemic case count to 692,206, according to the state's health department.

Saturday's daily case count is the highest the state has reported since December 7, when the reported case count was 9,350, state statistics show.

Just eight weeks ago, state data showed the daily reported case count was as low as 563 cases.

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said the Upper Midwest is beginning to see its fourth surge.

But Dr Osterholm doesn't seem to be looking very carefully at the statistics. Here's the performance of Michigan's neighbor to the south, Ohio;

And here's its neighbor to the west, Wisconsin:

Both states reflect what I'm finding is actually the most common pattern among US states, a surge in late 2020, followed by a turnaround in mid-January of this year and a fairly rapid descent to moderate or minimal levels, with no significaant upticks since. California is the best example, but the performance of many other states, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, the Dakotas, and Iowa is very similar. Michigan is in fact the big exception in the upper midwest.

The LA County health department's account of its experience, which I discussed last week, suggests that even with the small initial quantities of the vaccine that were available last December, targeting their distribution to the most critical areas -- elder and long-term care facilities and their staff -- produced dramatic results within weeks. California also incentivized distribution to zip codes where the outbreak was worst, which again has produced remarkable results in places like LA County, where daily statistics are actually in the state's "minimal" range.

The LA County health department' experience has also been that the vaccines are highly effective, so that even when quantities are limited, distribution to places that produce the most statistical bang for the buck brings a very favorable outcome.

So it puzzles me that COVID hucksters like Dr Osterholm in Minnesota seem to claim there's a new surge, when in fact efficient use of the existing vaccine supplies produces very positive results.

I would even question whether political or health authorities in places like Michigan are possibly slow-walking measures that have proven extremely effective in many other areas. It's also puzzling that I've seen no mention of the acutal US state p[atterns in any media.

UPDATE: It looks like Dr Osterholm has becme the next Dr Walensky.