Health officials in Michigan will have extra doses of COVID-19 vaccine to distribute this week, after borrowing some from a supply reserved for long-term care facilities.
The federal government approved a request from Michigan to re-allocate about 60-thousand doses of vaccine from a stockpile that Walgreens and C.V.S. use to inoculate patients and workers at long-term care facilities.
That will roughly double the amount of vaccines Michigan can provide this week to so-called “essential workers” like first-responders and teachers.
Officials say they will re-fill the long-term care supply at a later date.
The move comes as Wayne County officials are re-scheduling appointments for about 14-hundred people because officials have used up their supply of the Pfizer vaccine.
Heath officials have also identified Michigan’s first case of a new, more contagious variety of the coronavirus, in a woman living in Washtenaw County.