Michigan reports over 1,000 COVID-19 cases due to backlog; no new deaths

Michigan reported 1,041 new cases of COVID-19 and zero additional deaths related to the virus on Sunday.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said the large increase of daily cases was caused by a delay of cases that were supposed to be reported on Saturday. 

An issue in the department's systems that caused delays that started Friday evening, the department website says, have now been resolved. The site does not clarify how many cases were supposed to be reported on Saturday.

"Today’s new cases include a portion of referrals that would have appeared in Saturday's daily count, but had not been processed at the time of Saturday’s report," the state's health department posted on its site. 

The new daily count of coronavirus cases brings the state's total to 78,019 with the same total of 6,149 deaths. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also updated the number of probable coronavirus cases to 8,642 and the probable deaths to 251. 

According to the state's site, the last time no deaths were reported was July 14. 

From Sunday to Saturday last week, the state reported 3,798 cases and 48 deaths, the second highest total in nine weeks. The week before, the state had 4,232 cases and 50 deaths, an 11-week high. 

The percentage of COVID-19 tests returning positive results, a key metric for monitoring the prevalence of the virus, has steadily increased to 3.93%. Between Sunday and Thursday of last week, 3.69% of tests had come back positive. The week before that, the percentage was 3.5%

Of the 78,019 people who've tested positive for the virus in Michigan, 57,502 have met the Department of Health and Human Service's standards to be labeled recovered. The state updates the number of people recovered every Saturday.