Across the country, and in Michigan, there’s a race going on between vaccine distribution and coronavirus spread.
Many regions of the state, like Traverse City, have seen new COVID outbreaks but at the same time, progress is being made to vaccinate Michiganders.
At least two hospital systems announced a milestone in the race to distribute vaccines. MidMichigan Medical Center and Munson Medical center recently achieved 50,000 shots in arms - in just over three months.
Richard Bates, Regional Vice President for Medical Affairs at Mid Michigan Health, said they’re continuing to push the vaccination process.
“It was persistent,” he said. “Lots of effort but also it's the persistence of that philosophy of: we can get vaccines, we want to get it into patients arms as soon as we could.”
Dianne Michalek, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Munson said it’s clear vaccines can slow the spread of the virus.
“Currently, we do not have any patients in our facilities that have been fully vaccinated so we know vaccines work,” she said. “Unfortunately younger people who are not fully vaccinated, those are the ones that we are currently seeing hospitalized and we’re currently worried about.”
Michaelek said COVID cases in the community are similar to last fall, during the second wave of the pandemic.
Bates, with Mid-Michigan, said in the end, defeating COVID will be a group effort.
