GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — An article from a website that appears to be local news made an inaccurate claim about Kent County's COVID-19 cases and recovery rate, and that headline is making the rounds on social media. 

The story from the Grand Rapids Reporter, which is a part of Metric Media, offers this headline: "State Report: Kent County COVID recovery rate 99.94% through June 30." However, Dr. Adam London with the Kent County Health Department says the basis for that calculation is false. 

The article claims that between March 1 and June 27, Kent County had more than 223,000 estimated COVID-19 cases. It then says 99.94% of those cases recovered.

Kent County has about 5,000 diagnosed cases of the virus, but London said the CDC suggests the the actual number of cases in any given area is likely 10 times greater than the number of confirmed cases.

Even with that inflation, London says the county comes nowhere near what the article suggests.

"If you want to apply that assumption from the CDC, that would suggest that maybe we've had 50,000. I think that number comes out to a little less than 8% of our population in Kent County," he said. 

And because that number is false, London says every other statistic in the article will be incorrect too. This includes the recovery rate over 99%.

"Our actual recovery rate is going to be above 97%," says London. "But we don't know exactly what that recovery rate is because we don't know the exact number of people who have been infected."

The Grand Rapids Reporter is one of a dozen websites that popped up last fall, which present local news but with a political spin. 

Back in October, 13 ON YOUR SIDE spoke with Dr. Matt Grossman, director for Michigan State's Institute of Public Policy and Social Research, about Metric Media.

"These folks seemed to have gone out of their way to make it look like this was an unbiased and a local source rather than a political, national conservative source," Grossmann said. 

He noted that some of the information on these sites which are listed for communities across Michigan actually does come from other local websites. 

"It didn't appear to be an outlet that was trying to make money or sell ads or adhere to any journalism standards. It seemed more like an effort to influence the political debate," Grossman said. 

We can verify through Dr. London that the numbers in the Grand Rapids Reporter article are false. He suggests getting the latest Kent County COVID-19 statistics from the Kent County Dashboard.

More stories on 13 ON YOUR SIDE:

• Group of Michigan restaurants, bars commit to COVID-19 safety guidelines, require mask use
• Contact tracing grows in importance, challenges
• Kent County allocates federal COVID-19 relief funds

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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — Across the country, cases of COVID-19, influenza and RSV are increasing with cooler weather and as people gather for holidays. 

In Michigan, the deputy state epidemiologist says the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is seeing increases week after week for the past few months. 

"CDC is seeing nationally, again, nationally, seeing some of the highest numbers of COVID wastewater concentrations that they've seen, at least over the last 12 months," said Joe Coyle, deputy state epidemiologist. 

In Michigan, and the Midwest, Coyle said there may be higher than average levels detected in wastewater than certain areas of the country. 

"I don't think we are over over our peak yet, necessarily, for RSV, definitely not over our peak for COVID, and influenza is just starting," said Coyle. 

In Kent County, public health officials are also seeing the trend. 

"This time of year, we're seeing a lot of rise in overall communicable disease like that," said Andrew Salisbury, supervising sanitarian at Kent County Health Department (KCHD), "So, we are seeing a slight increase in COVID numbers across the county, as well as some isolated spots in our facilities."

One of the main ways to monitor COVID levels is with wastewater testing. It provides a clearer picture of the disease in a community than home testing, Salisbury said. 

"This truly gives us a way to monitor COVID levels across the community, and as well as an isolated facilities to give them a heads up of potential cases in the community," said Salisbury, "We've been able to detect cases in wastewater up to a few days before people even symptomatic."

He said they are also able to detect specific variants with wastewater testing. 

Kent County has around 20 sites across the county where they collect wastewater for testing. Much of the sample prep is done at Grand Valley State University's Cellular and Molecular Biology Department. Then, it arrives to the lab at KCHD to be analyzed. 

"We can really narrow down maybe one area of the city that has it," said Salisbury, "As well as working with some of our other smaller units, where we can say, 'Hey, in your facility, we're testing right outside your facility, we're seeing a rise.' We can give prevention methods for that exact facility that are a little more pinpointed."

Coyle said it is not too late to get vaccinated for influenza or COVID-19 this season. 

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