5 new cases of COVID-19 identified in Houghton County

Just after the two initial cases of COVID-19 in Houghton County were reported as recoveries, five more cases were identified in the area this week.

"Two of those cases were people that came home after wintering in a warmer climate. Two of those cases were people who were vacationing over the past weekend from out of state. They are going to remain in the area to recover, so they will be included in our totals as non-Michigan cases," said Kate Beer, Health Officer for the Western U.P. Health Department.

The fifth case was also reported as an asymptomatic patient going in for testing before a surgery. Currently the health department is working on tracing the potential spread of these new cases.

"We're in the process of doing the case investigation, we're doing the contact tracing for those five cases. We wanted to remind everyone that we did put out a travel advisory in early April and that really still stands," added Beer.

The travel advisory put out by the health department strongly recommends that anyone returning to the u-p from a different area self-quarantine to keep others safe.

"They should really be self-quarantining for 14 days before they go into the public here in any of our counties. They should remain indoors for that 14-day period and have someone bring them their groceries or do their grocery shopping before they get here," said Beer.

Officials believe that there may be an increase in cases as the U.P. begins to open back up.

The health department would like to remind everyone to continue to adhere to social distancing and hygiene recommendations.

"Particularly as even local people move around more, we're going to see an increase in cases. Our goal hasn't changed, our goal is still to mitigate this outbreak so that our hospitals do not get overwhelmed," said Beer.