(WWJ) With warm weather in this weekend’s forecast, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is worried it will bring residents out of their homes in large groups.
During Friday’s press conference, Mayor Duggan stressed Detroiters must continue to social distance despite the sunshine.
“All the good news will be undone in a hurry if people go out in the parks, in the neighborhoods and gather in large groups," he said.
This warning comes as the city shows signs of significant progress in battling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Duggan said over 800 hospital beds are vacant in the city, nearly 100 more than Thursday. One hundred ICU beds are unoccupied.
Numbers from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says the Detroit Medical Center, which includes Sinai Grace, has more than 240 coronavirus patients in its hospital system. Nearly 100 are in the ICU.
The Detroit Medical Center is at 83% occupancy, including all patients regardless of their COVID-19 status.
Mayor Duggan reported 9 more deaths in the city in the past 24 hours.
“It’s the smallest number we’ve seen in a long time,” Duggan said, “Part of that reflects we did not get a lot of old death certificates that the state had updated.”
Duggan showed a bar graph depicting the city's death rate slowing. 81 Detroiters died since April 23rd.
In contrast, 265 passed away during the city’s worst week for deaths between April 9th and April 15th.
A total of 1,045 residents has died from the disease.
Data from the Detroit Health Department shows more than 80 percent of those who died were over 60 years old, with 2 percent under 40.
9,192 cases have been diagnosed in the city.
With the decrease in rate of deaths and hospital occupancy; Mayor Duggan urged Detroit residents with other health conditions including cancer, sickle cell anemia and heart disease to resume seeing their doctor.
“We have some of the greatest healthcare systems in America,” Duggan said. “For forty or fifty years, taking care of patients at the same time there was infectious disease was something they did every day.”
Duggan said: “Our hospital systems, our healthcare systems have to get back to explaining to the patients that they run really sound systems. You can go see your doctor. You can go into your hospital and you can be safe.”