MARQUETTE — Marquette Branch Prison has had about 80 positive COVID-19 cases during a recent outbreak, the Michigan Department of Corrections has confirmed.

Positives have been found on the maximum security side.

MDOC spokesman Chris Gautz said in an email that 28 staff are off work for being positive, while 37 staff are off work for being close contacts. Fourteen staff are off because they are symptomatic.

On the level V side, staff are using full personal protection equipment and are using disposable meal service supplies.

“Their movement is being modified and cohorted to reduce spread,” Gautz said. “Staff are being cohorted to either work level I or level V to keep it from spreading to the level I side.

“To assist with the staffing issues, we are bringing in volunteers and activating 14 members of our Emergency Response Team. This is something we did in Muskegon last month to assist with their staffing issues due to COVID as well.”

Gautz said there is “no way to definitely say” what started the outbreak, but he dispelled tumors that the outbreak was started by prisoners who came to Marquette Branch Prison following from a September incident at the Chippewa Correctional Facility where prisoners took over a housing unit. The facility eventually regained control.

All of the prisoners who came from the Chippewa facility in Kincheloe were tested upon arrival to Marquette on Sept. 15, and all tested negative, Gautz said. Prisoners at Marquette didn’t start testing positive for at least 14 days after that. He said 105 prisoners had been transferred to Marquette because they needed to be in a higher-custody facility.

“Staff began testing positive the second week of September — before the incident at Chippewa — and have continued to test positive since,” Gautz said.

MDOC said on its website that it has tested every prisoner in its system, with testing continuing daily at its facilities. When prisoners are set to be released on parole, be discharged or be involved in such movements, they are tested again and not moved until test results return.

NMU receives top grade for dashboard

Northern Michigan University reported it has received an A grade for its Safe on Campus dashboard, which provides updated statistics on current and cumulative positive COVID-19 cases, quarantine/isolation counts and on-campus testing results.

It also includes Marquette County’s weekly tallies and links to related resources.

The team at RateCovidDashboard.com reviewed 245 college and university sites nationwide.

NMU was one of 24 institutions that earned an A by scoring 10-11 out of 13 possible points. Dashboard ratings criteria included ease in readability, timeliness of updates, the types of data presented and whether distinctions are made between students and faculty/staff.

Recent numbers on the dashboard, found at https://nmu.edu/safe-on-campus/, show between July 27 and Monday, there have been 72 cumulative COVID-19 positive cases, which include 30 on-campus students, 36 off-campus students and six employees.

There were seven active positive ases, all involving off-campus students.

NMU’s dashboard was developed by NMU Information Technology employees Tony Bertucci, Chris Danik and Genevieve Morgan. It is updated by Dr. Christopher Kirkpatrick, medical director of the NMU Health Center.

LMAS changes reporting strategy

With the growing number of COVID-19 cases in counties served by the Luce-Mackinac-Alger-Schoolcraft District Health Department, it announced it will now report only public exposure sites considered high risk based on factors such as number of people, size of venue and amount of time of the possible exposure.

From March 25 to July 1, Luce, Mackinac, Alger and Schoolcraft counties had a total of 20 confirmed COVID-19 cases. From July 1 to Saturday, confirmed cases rose from 20 to 176. When probable cases are included, as of Saturday the total was 219 in the four counties.

LMAS said the current number considered recovered is 94, or about 43% of the total cases so far.

According to Nicholas Derusha, LMAS district health officer and director, the growing numbers of cases has made it difficult for nursing and communications staff to report on every location.

“We need to make sure we are focused on contact tracing and case investigation and then identifying any high-risk exposure sites that have the potential of becoming outbreaks,” Derusha said a statement.

Dr. James Terrian, LMAS medical director, said in a statement, “We have four critical access hospitals in our counties that could quickly be over their capacity with an influx of COVID patients, made more complicated as we move into flu season.

“We need everyone to do what we ask to bring the spread of COVID down in our area. That includes answering the phone and cooperating with our public health staff as they conduct contact tracing and case investigations.”

Health experts send letter

Five public health experts on Monday sent an open letter to Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, explaining the problems with his recent comments on herd immunity, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office announced.

On Saturday, an MLive article published comments Shirkey, who was quoted as saying, “I’m also a big believer that there’s an element of herd immunity that needs to take place.”

In their letter, the public health experts said, “If ‘herd immunity’ were to begin after about 80% of the state’s population has been infected, as some believe, then 6.5 million more Michiganders would still need to contract COVID-19. At the current mortality rate, this would mean more than 30,000 additional deaths — more than four times the number of deaths to date.”

A “much better alternative” would be to control the spread of the coronavirus through policies based on evidence, they said, followed by broad use of a safe and effective vaccine when available.

The experts requested Shirkey clarify his remarks about herd immunity to avoid leaving the impression that “a leader of your stature is supporting greater spread of coronavirus as public policy.”

They also requested that the Senate convene a hearing with recognized experts in public health and medicine so legislators can better understand the nature of the virus and how to best respond. Such a hearing, they said, would give experts the opportunity to share evidence, as well as provide senators the chance to ask questions about the virus, its spread and what can be done to save more lives.

The letter was signed by:

≤ Joshua M. Sharfstein, M.D., professor of the Practice in Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health;

≤ Thomas M. File, Jr., M.D., president, Infectious Diseases Society of America;

≤ Tom Frieden, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Resolve to Save Lives, an Initiative of Vital Strategies, and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

≤ Ashish K. Jha, M.D., Dean Brown University School of Public Health; and

≤ Carlos Del Rio, M.D., distinguished professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Emory University School of Medicine.