Nearly two full months into 2018 and flu cases are showing signs of seriously beginning to decline in Michigan, figures from the Department of Health and Human Services show.
For the week ending, Saturday, February 24, the state reported a total of 3,254 cases of flu, nearly 900 fewer than a week ago. The cases reported were also nearly 2,000 fewer than the number reported three weeks ago.
That still meant that 29,603 cases have been reported so far in the state, 3,600 more than were reported in all of 2017. 2018 so far is the worst year for flu in the state in at least a decade. The number of cases reported in just two months of this year is more than twice as many as were reported in all of 2016.
And the number of flu-like disease cases reported sharply dropped in the past week. A total of 3,520 were reported, compared to 11,896 reported a week ago and 26,819 cases reported three weeks ago.
So far there have been a total of 118,487 cases reported in 2018, far short of the 394,848 total cases reported in 2017. But if flu-like diseases cases were still to be reported for the rest of 2018 at the current monthly rate they would pass the total cases reported in 2017.