Courtesy Image An illustration of the coronavirus provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

ALPENA — Northeast Michigan saw a slight increase in its vaccine rate this week while local public health officials reported two new infections.

As of Tuesday, 54.9% of Alpena County residents 16 or older had been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to state data.

The state says 59.9% of Presque Isle County residents, 53.2% of Montmorency County residents, and 55.1% of Alcona County residents have been fully vaccinated.

In the past week, public health officials have reported two newly infected or probably Northeast Michiganders and no new deaths of someone who had been infected.

Since February, Northeast Michigan health officials had reported confirmed and suspected infections as one number. A person is suspected infected if they’d been exposed to a confirmed infected person but hadn’t been tested, themselves — such as family members of infected people.

Northeast Michigan public health agencies stopped reporting the number of people recovered from COVID-19, but, based on federal definitions that consider a person living 30 days after infection to have recovered from the disease, The News estimates 54 Northeast Michiganders were actively infected — and potentially contagious — on Friday.

As of July 1, 106 residents were actively infected.

Other key Northeast Michigan COVID-19 statistics:

∫ Updated hospital data was not available as of Friday.

∫ Since the pandemic’s start in mid-March 2020, public health officials have reported 4,694 Northeast Michiganders infected or probably infected, and 135 related deaths.

∫ As of June 30, the state reported no newly infected residents of Northeast Michigan nursing homes, and no newly infected nursing home employees. That’s a key statistic, because COVID-19 tends to cause the most serious complications in infected senior citizens, and nursing home infections accounted for most infections early on in the outbreak.

VACCINES

NOTE: The chart shows the percent of Northeast Michiganders 16 and older fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, meaning they’d received both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine. The “target” line above reflects that many public health experts say we can consider the coronavirus pandemic “over” once 70% of the adult population is fully vaccinated.

INFECTIONS, RECOVERIES, AND DEATHS

NOTE: Northeast Michigan public health agencies have reported confirmed and suspected infections as one number since Feb. 18. A suspected infection represents a person who’d been in close contact with an infected person but hadn’t been tested themselves, such as a person who lives with a person confirmed infected.

Those agencies also stopped tracking recoveries after vaccine rollouts began in earnest in early 2021. The number of recoveries represents a News estimate based on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition of “recovered” as an infected person still living 30 days after infection.

ACTIVE CASES

NOTE: “Active cases” is a News estimate of the number of currently infected — and potentially contagious — Northeast Michiganders representing cumulative cases minus recoveries and deaths.

HOSPITAL OCCUPANCY

NOTE: One of the primary goals of state-mandated coronavirus restrictions has been to prevent hospitals from being overrun with COVID-19-infected patients, so hospital occupancy rates are a key metric state officials use when deciding whether new restrictions are necessary.

TIMELINE: THE FIRST YEAR

Click through the interactive timeline below for a look at how the coronavirus spread throughout Northeast Michigan in its first year.