coronavirus vaccine

Detroit launched its first major COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Wednesday at a drive-thru clinic set up in the garage of the TCF Center. City health officials made 400 appointments for Detroit seniors, teachers, and childcare providers.

“I'm an active person,” said Francena Dudely, an 87-year-old lifelong Detroiter, who was among those vaccinated. “I want to be able to get out a little bit and even if I still have to wear a mask, I will feel more comfortable.”

It'll be May, the state estimates, before Michigan can open up COVID-19 vaccines to the next wave of people. But if Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail could somehow get her hands on 83,000 doses of the vaccine – one for each of the county's currently eligible frontline workers, as well people older than 65 – she’s pretty sure she could get all those shots in arms in, say, three weeks.

The federal government gave states even more incentive this week to make sure they're getting COVID-19 shots injected into arms as quickly as possible.

States that don't efficiently immunize their people — and report the data accurately — won't get as many doses of COVID-19 vaccines as states that do. The change in the way vaccines are being distributed comes as the virus continues to spread across the nation, filling hospital beds and killing people at a record pace.

Vaccinations are underway at Michigan’s long-term care facilities. Data from CVS show the pharmacy had distributed over 20,000 doses as of Friday.

Walgreens doesn’t provide the same state-level data, but says it expects to administer all first doses for those residents and staff who want them by January 25.

Michigan's guidelines for prioritization of the COVID-19 vaccine includes staff in correctional facilities and homeless shelters in its early phases, but not inmates and people living in homeless shelters.

That's a concern for the ACLU of Michigan, who released a memo this week asking the state to reconsider these groups to include residents of homeless shelters and inmates in Michigan's prisons and jails.

Technically, Michiganders 65 and older, as well as some frontline essential workers, are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine starting Monday, January 11th. 

But that’s not going to get them an appointment any time soon at the Kent County public health clinic.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has unveiled a three-part plan to get COVID-19 vaccinations rolling in the city.

One major component is turning the TCF Convention Center garage into a drive-thru vaccination site. Starting next week, people 75 and older can get vaccinated there. So can people 65 and older so long as they accompany someone over 75. K-12 teachers and child care providers who wouldn’t otherwise get vaccinated through their employer are also eligible to get vaccinated at TCF.

Local health leaders say they expect the pace of COVID vaccinations to speed up in the coming weeks.

As of Tuesday, 86,626 people had received the first dose of a vaccine in Michigan. But that’s out of nearly 338,000 doses that have been distributed, according to the state’s vaccine dashboard.

Some local health leaders say they’ve purposely gone slow in the first weeks, because the virus requires two shots, weeks apart.

More than 5,000 long-term care facilities in Michigan are expected to receive the Moderna vaccine from either CVS Pharmacy or Walgreens in the coming weeks, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Through a partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the pharmacy chains will set up three vaccination clinics at each enrolled site over a 12-week period.

Jeffrey Byrnes is giving a lot of thought these days to how a newly approved vaccine for the coronavirus should be dispensed.

Nurses, housekeepers, and other frontline workers at the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs hospital received their first doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday.

The Ann Arbor site was the only VA hospital in Michigan to receive doses this week and one of 37 in the U.S. — selected for their ability to vaccinate a large number of people and manage the Pfizer vials, which require ultra-cold storage.

Three semi-trucks loaded with the nation's first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine rolled out of the parking lot of the Pfizer manufacturing plant early Sunday morning, met with cheering crowds of local residents who said they were proud of their hometown's contribution to science, and helping to bring the end to the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Michigan continue to decline steadily at the state level.

As of Thursday, the number of confirmed COVID patients in hospitals statewide was more than 3,539, which includes pediatric patients, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The number of confirmed adult patients in the intensive care unit was 830.

The massive coronavirus vaccination effort to immunize Michigan's roughly 600,000 health care workers — and eventually the entire population — is in high gear as Pfizer's vaccine candidate undergoes a federal hearing Thursday to review whether it can be safely injected into the arms of millions of Americans.

In the scramble to stop a pandemic that's killed 288,000 people in the U.S. and 10,138 in Michigan, some metro Detroit hospital systems told the Free Press this week that they're mobilizing the biggest vaccination effort in U.S. history with so many unknowns that, in some ways, it's like they're flying in the dark.

“The only way to beat it is to face it.”

That’s the slogan Oakland County is using in its public messaging campaign urging people to stick with COVID-19 restrictions as the pandemic drags on.

Appearing before the Michigan Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic last week, state health department director Robert Gordon said that residents and staff in long-term care facilities would be one of the first groups to receive a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available. 

Many nursing homes will be receiving their doses free of charge from a large pharmacy chain, through a program organized by the CDC.

Officials in southeast Michigan are increasing access to COVID-19 testing in response to colder weather and rising infections in the area.

Oakland County is moving a number of its testing sites indoors.

“It turns out fire stations are a wonderful place to do them because they have the large doors and you can drive through them,” said David Coulter, the county executive.

Starting November 30, the following locations will be open by appointment for free drive-thru testing: