Bridge Michigan launches Elections Tracker, ends COVID Tracker

Bridge Michigan is discontinuing its COVID-19 Tracker due to changes in federal reporting standards and launching the 2024 Michigan Elections Tracker to provide regular updates on political campaigns.

Bridge published its final tracker on Tuesday after four years and more than 600 weekly updates of the feature that was launched in the early days of the pandemic to provide updates about case spread, deaths, hospitalizations, vaccines and other information.

Most news sites stopped reporting COVID data long ago. The federal emergency from the pandemic ended on May 11, 2023, and most of Michigan’s restrictions ceased June 1, 2021.

Bridge continued its tracker because readers expressed an interest in weekly reporting of case counts and hospitalizations.

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The end of the tracker coincides with the end of a federal mandate this week that had required hospitals to provide weekly reports about their number of COVID-19-positive patients.

Michigan still reports weekly case counts and deaths, but both are unreliable indicators of the spread of the virus.

Case counts only reflect infections confirmed by laboratory tests, rather than disposable home tests that are far more common. Data on deaths can lag for weeks and months, rendering them unreliable as a gauge of the virus’ contemporaneous impact.

The end of the tracker, however, does not mean Bridge will stop its award-winning coverage of the pandemic, especially if cases spike.

At the same time, Bridge is excited to launch the Elections Tracker for day-to-day updates on the campaigns for president, an open U.S. Senate seat, 13 congressional districts and all 110 seats of the state House.

It will be interesting because so much is at stake.

Michigan is one of a handful of swing states that are expected to decide the race to the White House.

The race to succeed retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, may decide which party controls the Senate. Two open races for U.S. House — in districts centered on Flint and Lansing — are expected to be among the most competitive in the country.

And Michigan’s state House race is similarly competitive, as Democrats hold a two-seat majority.

In the next few weeks, Bridge will launch its 2024 Voter Guide for information on races, ballots, election security, absentee voting and more. Let us know what other features you need by emailing jkurth@bridgemi.com.