Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
HANCOCK — The Western Upper Peninsula now has a second death related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, after the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department announced Houghton County’s first fatality Saturday.
“Our heartfelt sympathies and prayers go out to the family who has lost their loved one,” WUPHD health officer Kate Beer said in the announcement. “This is a sad reminder of the seriousness of the COVID-19 threat. We must continue our prevention efforts, especially for the safety of our elderly and vulnerable populations.”
The Houghton County case involved an elderly person who was in a local hospital when they died of complications associated with COVID-19.
Prior to this weekend’s announcement, the lone death in the five counties the WUPHD serves was an elderly Gogebic County man whose death was announced March 26.
The WUPHD also announced this weekend the Theta Tau-Beta Chapter’s house on Fairview Street in Houghton may be a potential exposure site after case investigators determined social distancing and masking weren’t practiced during events held at the site on Aug. 24 and Aug. 25 that a person with COVID-19 attended.
“Theta Tau-Beta Chapter is an off-campus student fraternal organization that is not recognized by Michigan Tech,” according to the announcement.
Gogebic County now has a total of 134 positive cases and 10 probable cases as of Sunday, according to state data, while Ontonagon County has 33 positives and one probable.
These numbers make up a large part of the 235 positives and 25 probables in the WUPHD’s service area of Gogebic, Ontonagon, Houghton, Baraga and Keweenaw counties.
In Wisconsin, Iron County Health Department officials said “COVID-19 is wide-spread in both northern and southern Iron County” Friday as they announced a total of 121 positive cases, 99 of which are considered recovered.
Health officials in both states continue to urge people to stay home as much as possible, wear masks and practice social distancing.
