ESCANABA — The days of tracking COVID-19 infections are coming to an end due to a series of decisions at the federal and state level.

At the beginning of the pandemic, a number of tracking programs were created to monitor COVID-19 infections and the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for them. These programs tracked confirmed cases found through testing, outbreaks in schools and skilled nursing facilities, the number of hospital beds being used for COVID-19 patients, and how much DNA from the SARS-CoV-2 could be detected in sewer water.

As time went on, many of these programs were sunsetted, leaving three primary sources of information about viral activity at the local level: The State of Michigan SARS-CoV-2 Epidemiology – Wastewater Evaluation and Reporting (SEWER) network and the Sentinel Wastewater Epidemiology Evaluation Project (SWEEP), both of which looked for viral DNA in sewer water; and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) COVID-19 dashboard, which tracked a number of metrics related to cases confirmed in healthcare settings.

Both SWEEP and SEWER were shutdown April 1, with both programs citing that the federal funding for the programs was rescinded.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a separate wastewater tracking system that looks at data from 17 sewersheds in Michigan, serving 15 counties, but that data is largely incomplete. All of the six U.P. counties listed by the CDC — Menominee, Houghton, Gogebic, Dickinson, Delta, and Baraga — are reported as having “No Data” for the week of June 8 to June 14. In total, only 8 of the 17 sewersheds are listed as reporting data in that period.

The MDHHS dashboard will officially stop reporting case data June 30, though some general information about viral activity statewide will be made available on a separate dashboard tracking all seasonal respiratory viruses in the state. That data includes the percentage of emergency room visits in the last week related to COVID-19 (0.2% statewide as of June 14), the number of Michiganders who have received a 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine (11.5%), and the number of hospital admissions in Michigan associated with COVID-19 (87 as of June 14).

The new dashboard does not track COVID-19 related deaths reported to MDHHS, nor does it show county-by-county breakdowns or give users the ability to view trends overtime. The state says the older dashboard and the public use datasets behind the dashboard will remain available as an archive of Michigan’s COVID-19 data.

Over time, the data from MDHHS has become less reliable. At the beginning of the pandemic, when all testing was done in healthcare settings or at special sites that reported to the state, all confirmed cases were reported. At-home testing reduced the number of cases that were reported to the state, and the expiration of a federal mandate in April of last year that hopsital admissions and hospital capacity/occupancy be reported further reduced the amount of data provided to MDHHS.

Still, the dashboard served as a barometer of infection activity, allowing residents to see if case numbers were increasing or decreasing. It also provided the only record of deaths related to the virus reported to MDHHS.

For the week of June 21, only four U.P. counties were reported as having cases: Iron (2), Dickinson (1), Menominee (3), and Delta (2).

As of the week of June 21, 17 people had died of COVID-19-related causes in 2025 across the Upper Peninsula. The breakdown of those deaths is as follows:

Gogebic – 1 (one death the week of Jan. 4)

Ontonagon – 0

Houghton – 0

Keweenaw – 0

Iron – 0

Baraga – 0

Dickinson – 2 (two deaths the week of Jan. 25)

Marquette – 2 (one death the week of Feb. 8, one death the week of Feb. 22)

Menominee – 1 (one death the week of April 26)

Delta – 6 (one death the weeks of Jan. 18, Jan. 25, Feb. 22, and March 3; two deaths the week of Feb. 15)

Alger – 0

Schoolcraft – 1 (one death the week of Feb. 15)

Luce – 0

Mackinac – 0

Chippewa – 4 (two deaths the week of Jan. 25, one death the weeks of Feb. 1 and Feb. 8)