LANSING, Michigan (AP) – Michigan announced on Friday that all residents aged 16 and over will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine on April 5, almost a month before the promised date on May 1. by President Joe Biden.
Persons aged 16 to 49 with certain medical conditions or disabilities will qualify from March 22, when young people aged 50 to 64 will be able to start receiving photos with a previous ad. Two days later, March 24, a regional mass vaccination site selected by the federal government will open at Ford Field in Detroit to administer 6,000 additional doses per day for two months.
“The safe COVID-19 vaccine is the most effective way to protect you, your family and others from the virus,” said Governor Gretchen Whitmer in a statement. “It will help the country to return to normal and help the economy.”
Michigan was the third state to announce broad eligibility this week. In Alaska, people over 16 are now eligible. Utah will allow adults over 18 to be vaccinated from April 1.
The United States hopes to have enough doses for adults by the end of May, but Biden has warned that the process of administering those doses will take time. As of Wednesday, some 1.8 million people, 22% of Michigan’s over 16-year-old population, had been fully or partially vaccinated.
Whitmer and state health officials said they opened eligibility based on the number of vaccines planned and the May 1 directive that Biden issued in his first prime-time speech on Thursday. It could take “several weeks” beyond April 5 for anyone who wants the vaccine to get an appointment, according to the state health department. He said that providers should, when scheduling appointments, consider the risk of a person’s exposure at work and their vulnerability to serious illnesses.
The Detroit site will operate 12 and a half hours every day for eight weeks, vaccinating at least 168,000 people with two Pfizer injections, potentially more if a single dose vaccine is used in the final two weeks. Detroit was selected by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is prioritizing vulnerable areas. Instructions on how to make an appointment will be announced in the coming days.
Kevin Sligh, FEMA interim administrator in the Great Lakes region, said the site will expand the vaccination rate “in an efficient, effective and equitable manner, with an explicit focus on ensuring that local communities at high risk of exposure to COVID -19 and infection are not left behind. ”
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