Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press, and Kelly House, Bridge Magazine

At Henry Ford Health System, hospitals are now discharging more patients with the coronavirus to recover at home than seeing new patients in its emergency rooms.

At Michigan Medicine, doctors are doing the same math and finding small, tentative glimmers of hope.

Some physicians — but not all — say they are hearing similar tales from other hospitals, perhaps the first hopeful sign that, for southeast Michigan at least, the surge in COVID-19 cases may be nearing its peak.

"We're not ready to say that we're through the peak of it because we are actively managing capacity and resource concerns, but we do have several glimmers of hope," Dr. Steven Kalkanis, CEO of the Henry Ford Medical Group and senior vice president and chief academic officer, said Thursday.

This story was co-published with Bridge Magazine.

Among them is that the hospital system is now discharging more COVID-19 patients to recover at home than it is seeing new patients in its emergency rooms, he said.

"Secondly, we're getting patients successfully weaned off of ventilators more than those who need to go on ventilators," Kalkanis said. "And third, based on our own internal analytics, our numbers of COVID-positive patients in the community presenting to our emergency rooms seems to be tapering off and is slightly less than what we would have predicted."

Dr. Vikas Parekh, associate chief clinical officer for Michigan Medicine’s adult hospitals and professor of internal medicine, said the Ann Arbor-based health system is seeing similar signs that the virus may be loosening its grip on southeastern Michigan.

The daily rate of COVID-19 patients admitted to Michigan Medicine has been declining for several days, Parekh said, and “we’re hearing the same from other health systems in the region.”

Parekh is also encouraged that Michigan’s so-called “doubling time” — the number of days it takes for positive cases in the state to double — has also been slowing. Early on, the state’s doubling time was two to three days. Now, it has slowed to nine days statewide — and far slower in some counties. It’s a sign that Michigan’s coronavirus curve is flattening, Parekh said, but "we can’t let up our guard."

“There is still a long period of the other side of the curve, so to speak,” he said.

But while Henry Ford Health and Michigan Medicine say they're starting to see signs of the virus letting up, Dr. Teena Chopra, a professor of infectious diseases at Wayne State University who is also in charge of infection control for the Detroit Medical Center, said its hospital admissions for COVID-19 are still on the upswing.

“We are not seeing a slowdown,” Chopra said, and estimated DMC likely won’t see one for two to three weeks. Chopra cautioned against drawing early conclusions about a flattening curve. Doing so, she said, may create “false hope” that could prompt people to stop observing social distancing and ultimately lead to more lives lost.

“We won’t be out of the woods until we have a vaccine,” Chopra said.

On the bright side, Chopra said, the new COVID-19 field hospital at Detroit’s TCF Center will allow health systems in southeastern Michigan to offload coronavirus patients who are in stable condition, freeing up staff to dedicate more attention to critically ill patients.

What these hospitals are seeing nearly matches a model widely used by state and federal officials that anticipated the state would hit its peak use of hospital beds on April 7. That model looks at past usage as well as steps taken by the state to stop the spread, like the stay at home order that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has extended until April 30.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington has also lowered its anticipated death toll in Michigan. Just a few days ago, IHME expected Michigan to lose nearly 3,000 residents to COVID-19 but has now scaled that back to 2,100.

Michigan reported 21,504 confirmed coronavirus cases and a total of 1,076 deaths Thursday afternoon, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. It also reported at least 56 people have recovered.

More:Michigan releases new data on how many people have recovered from coronavirus

More:Michigan releases new data on how many people have recovered from coronavirus

Among them are some health care workers.

Dr. Betty Chu, the incident commander for Henry Ford's COVID-19 response, said the health system has tested at least 3,000 of its employees since March 12, and of them, 872 tested positive for coronavirus. For 22 people, test results are pending.

"The total number of employees who tested positive is about 2.5% of our entire workforce. ... That also includes, of course, those employees who contracted or got the disease in the community," said Chu, who also is associate chief clinical officer and chief quality officer for the five-hospital health system.

"We don't differentiate between employees who are symptomatic that acquired COVID in the community versus those that ... potentially were exposed to it at work because we can't differentiate from those employees. So we test all employees when they have symptoms. And many of the employees who tested positive are ones who never had direct patient-care involvement."

Right now, Chu said about 200 Henry Ford employees are not working because they are sick.

Before workers who tested positive for COVID-19 can return to work they must be fully asymptomatic for three full days, said Chu. In addition, she said at least seven days must have passed since their symptoms began, which adheres to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

"Our team members really are our greatest asset," she said. "We know they are the irreplaceable resource that we have. They're going to help us get through this pandemic, and their health and safety is our top priority."

About 1,500 workers — including 500 nurses — were off the job Monday at Beaumont Health because of coronavirus symptoms, spokesman Mark Geary said earlier this week.

The employees of the eight-hospital health system, which has 38,000 workers, “have symptoms consistent with COVID-19,” Geary said. They include anyone “throughout the system” from front-line medical staff to office personnel and others.

Geary said it’s impossible to know how many of the Beaumont employees were exposed through work, by other family members or in the community.

Some employees, he said, are nearing the end of their seven days at home, have no symptoms, and are nearly ready to return to work. He did not disclose how many of those with symptoms had actually tested positive for the virus.

Adding to the tally of health care workers sickened in the pandemic are at least 110 employees of Michigan Medicine.

It announced Tuesday that 728 workers have been tested so far for COVID-19, but notes there may be additional staff members who've contracted the virus but were tested elsewhere. Michigan Medicine employs about 28,600 people.

"The numbers reflect just those who sought testing at Michigan Medicine or those hospitalized at Michigan Medicine. Some Michigan Medicine employees may have been tested outside our system," according to a statement.

The Detroit Free Press and Bridge Magazine also asked the Detroit Medical Center, Trinity Health, which includes the St. Joseph Mercy Health System, Ascension, and the Detroit VA Medical Center how many employees have contracted coronavirus since the outbreak began.

Both the DMC and Trinity Health said they would not release information about how many of their employees have been tested for COVID-19, how many are ill or how many have died from the virus.

Ascension and the Detroit VA Medical Center have yet to respond to questions.

The numbers underscore the growing anxiety of hospital workers, most notably nurses, who are in close contact with COVID-19 patients, often without adequate protective gear because of limited supplies.

At Beaumont, “employees are only tested if they present themselves at a Beaumont (emergency center) or curbside screening and meet the guidelines to be tested,” said Aaron Gillingham, senior vice president and chief human resources officer.

Beaumont employees must stay home for at least seven days, be fever-free for three days, and have no symptoms before returning to work, Geary said, adding that the seven-day period does not count against workers’ “paid time off.”

Bridge Magazine writer Robin Erb and Michael Wilkinson contributed to this report.

Get involved: The Detroit Free Press and Bridge Magazine are teaming up to report on Michigan hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic. If you work in a Michigan hospital, we would love to hear from you. You can contact Kristen Jordan Shamus at kshamus@freepress.com or Robin Erb at rerb@bridgemi.com.