By Ilsa Minor

iminor@dailypress.net

ESCANABA — Delta County has extended its lead as 2025’s most deadly county in the Upper Peninsula for COVID-19 infections, now outpacing all other counties with deaths three-to-one.

The new death reported for the week of Feb. 15 by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services brings the total number of U.P. deaths from the virus for 2025 to seven. Three of those deaths were in Delta County, while the remaining four deaths were in Gogebic, Dickinson, Marquette, and Chippewa counties.

Delta County is also one of the peninsula’s more infected counties, with MDHHS reporting 13 new cases last week — tying Iron county for third place after Marquette (20) and Menominee (15). The only county not to report new infections last week was Alger County.

The most recent data from the Sentinel Wastewater Epidemiology Evaluation Project, commonly known as “SWEEP,” has also indicated an uptick in viral activity locally. The program monitors sewer water from select wastewater treatment plants across Michigan for DNA from the virus responsible for COVID-19.

SWEEP is an imperfect system in that it is impossible to translate the amount of viral DNA found in any one sample to the number of sick people in a community. However, more viral DNA is shed by sick individuals using toilets when illness rates are high, and, unlike MDHHS’ numbers, the data does not exclude the impact of individuals who are not formally diagnosed with COVID-19 in a healthcare setting.

The last two samples collected at the Escanaba Wastewater Treatment Plant and submitted to SWEEP contained more viral DNA than 50% and 11% of all samples submitted to the program since Escanaba began participating in August of 2021. Those samples were dated for Feb. 5 and Feb. 3, respectively.

The 11% sample from Feb. 3 may be an anomaly. The samples immediately preceding it contained more DNA than 49% of samples (Jan. 29) and 40% of samples (Jan. 27), suggesting viral activity has been gradually increasing since the end of January.

With the exception of the Portage Lake Township in Houghton County — which saw its most recent SWEEP sample from Feb. 5 contain 11% more DNA than all other Portage Lake Township samples — no other U.P. communities participate in SWEEP. That leaves MDHHS’ numbers the most accessible gauge of viral activity for most of the U.P.

For the week of Feb. 15, the number of cases identified by MDHHS in the Upper Peninsula in each county is as follows:

Gogebic – 5

Ontonagon – 7

Houghton – 6

Keweenaw – 2

Iron – 13

Baraga – 2

Dickinson – 9

Marquette – 20

Menominee – 15

Delta – 13

Alger – 0

Schoolcraft – 3

Luce – 2

Mackinac – 2

Chippewa – 2

The number of total deaths in the peninsula that had been reported since the beginning of 2025 as of Thursday was seven. Those deaths took place in the following counties:

Gogebic – 1

Dickinson – 1

Marquette – 1

Delta – 3

Chippewa – 1