Dear Editor,
There have been several letters in the Detroit Free Press commending the result of the Governor’s actions based on data to control COVID-19.
An examination comparing Michigan data to our neighboring states shows a different picture.
The following data shows percentages of cases per population followed by number of deaths per case:
US 0.7%/5.1%, Michigan 0.7%/9.0%, Ohio 0.4%/6.0%, Indiana 0.6%/6%, Wisconsin 0.4%/3.0%, Minnesota 0.6%/4.0%, and Illinois 1.0%/4.9%.
The only neighbor state with a higher infection rate is Illinois and no state had a higher death rate per case and in some cases the Michigan death rate is double or even triple that of our neighboring states.
The results are out of the 68,000 reported cases in Michigan, there have been sadly 6,110 deaths and 49,200 recovered cases, so there are less than 13,000 active cases in the state (about 0.13% of the population -1.3 cases per 1000 people).

Sincerely,
Tom Breneiser
Clarkston