Southeast Michigan is at the heart of the most serious outbreaks.

In Wayne County alone, six nursing homes have more than 40 COVID-19 cases apiece, including Imperial Healthcare Centre in Dearborn Heights with 76 cases.

Statewide, 1 in 3 nursing homes — 141 of 476 — had at least one case of coronavirus. Wayne County had 38 homes with one confirmed case, while there are 30 in Oakland County and 21 in Macomb County.

Wayne County nursing homes topped the state with 785 COVID-19 cases, followed by Oakland County with 455 cases and Macomb County with 345 cases.

“This is so concerning. COVID-19 in nursing homes is like pouring gasoline on a fire. These people are so vulnerable,” said Peter Gulick, an infectious disease specialist at Michigan State University.

The records were released after weeks of resistance from state and local officials, including the Detroit Health Department that said making records public might cause the facilities “undue stress”.

Bridge has reported on the issue for weeks, noting that at least 17 states had disclosed the names of nursing homes with known coronavirus infections and eight of those posted lists online.

Earlier this week, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the state would reverse course, following criticism from advocates who had called the withholding of information a “travesty.”

Brian Lee, executive director of Families for Better Care, a Texas-based nonproift advocacy group, told Bridge this month that failing to release information was a “a disservice to residents and health care workers … who are out there wondering if there is an outbreak in a loved one’s home.”

Friday’s release of data, however, does not include all the facilities that care for Michigan’s seniors.

It doesn’t include, for instance, information on 292 licensed homes for the aged – homes requiring less medical care than nursing homes – and more than 4,200 licensed adult foster care homes that serve the disabled. Those facilities have a total bed capacity of about 57,000 residents. (In contrast, nursing homes care for about 40,000 seniors statewide.)

Next week, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is expected to release reporting on COVID-19 cases at long-term care facilities.

But even beyond the sheer scale of coronavirus nursing home spread revealed by this public reporting, cumulative state data also point to a rising COVID-19 toll on Michigan’s elderly.

On April 1, the median age of Michigan COVID-19 deaths was 72. By Thursday, according to state COVID-tracking, that median age had climbed to 76. Those 60 and older accounted for 86 percent of all 3,085 deaths, while those 80 and older accounted for 39 percent of all deaths.

Advocates for the elderly say these new disclosures highlight the need to funnel public resources to long-term care facilities with multiple cases of COVID-19.

Sarah Slocum, co-director of the Program to Improve Eldercare at Altarum, an Ann Arbor-based nonprofit research and consulting firm, said that could include everything from protective gear such as masks and gowns to inspections of nursing homes with widespread outbreaks.

“That’s the value of this data, to direct additional resources that may not have been put in place yet. That’s the point of it all, to target resources.”