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Ariana Taylor
| The Detroit News
Wayne County Health Department officials on Tuesday instructed elderly residents to contact local hospitals to arrange vaccinations against COVID-19, as the few doses they received from the state are being reserved for first responders, long-term care teams and other frontline workers.
Dr. Mouhanad Hammami, Wayne County health strategist, told Wayne County Commissioners on Tuesday that the department ordered nearly 5,000 doses of the vaccine for its last three shipments, but received far fewer doses.
“The state did not get what we expected from the federal government, we did not get what we expected from the state and so on. You can only distribute what you have,” Hammami told the commissioners.
The state’s largest county, except Detroit, received three vaccine shipments. Each time, the county ordered 4,875 doses, Hammami said. The county received 1,950 doses on December 17; 975 doses on December 29 and 2,925 doses on Monday.
Hammami said Monday’s shipment would run out by the middle of next week.
“We need enough for 11,000 (people), starting today. Tomorrow the number will increase more and more,” Hammami told the commissioners.
Hammami said that while the state is allowing agencies to move to phase 1B, which allows anyone over 65 to be vaccinated, this is not possible in Wayne County. “We cannot move to 1B with the same speed that everyone expects of us,” he said.
The county has an estimated 500,000 people eligible for vaccines and 11,000 people registered for vaccines.
Hospitals and healthcare systems currently have the most reliable supply of vaccines for the elderly, said Hammami.
“I want to emphasize that anyone aged 65 or over, because this is the contradiction that the state said, ‘Call your health department’, which won’t do any good if they call us. In fact, it will overwhelm us because let’s repeat the same message: You need to go to your health care system, “Hammami told The Detroit News on Monday.
The county is also working with superintendents to research school districts to determine how many teachers would be willing to receive the vaccine to determine future needs, he said.
Hospitals are also overwhelmed with requests for vaccination appointments. Beaumont Health tripled its server capacity over the weekend after its website crashed on Friday due to high demand for COVID-19 vaccines.
The surge in demand came after Beaumont notified patients Thursday night that vaccines would be available for people 65 and older starting on Monday.
Nearly 1 million Beaumont patients have access to myBeaumontChart, an online health portal that connects people with their health records, medical exam information and appointments.
Beaumont currently has the capacity to vaccinate 3,200 people a day at the Beaumont Service Center in Southfield and plans to expand to other locations soon.
Henry Ford Health System said he started contacting his existing patients aged 65 and over on Friday afternoon through MyChart, the hospital’s online patient portal, and was trying to proactively contact patients who were not are part of that system to encourage them to apply, spokesman John Gillespie said.
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Tim Killeen, who chairs the committee’s Health and Human Services Committee, said it would not be a good idea for the county to use its size as a reason to push for more doses of the vaccine.
“You better believe that each jurisdiction is pushing for more vaccines to reach your jurisdiction,” said Killeen. “The last thing you want is that the number of vaccines your local jurisdiction receives is in direct relation to the political power of the individuals in that jurisdiction. We need to distribute this vaccine regardless of the policy involved.”
There are more than 58,000 cases in the county and an additional 27,000 cases in Detroit.
Excluding Detroit, the county recorded 1,859 deaths, including Wayne County sheriff Benny Napoleon and Dearborn Heights Mayor Daniel Paletko.
The most impacted cities include: Dearborn – 7,776 cases, 176 deaths; Livonia – 4,632 cases, 228 deaths; Canton Township – 4,347 cases, 88 deaths; and Dearborn Heights – 3,957 cases, 106 deaths, according to the county COVID-19 panel.
Mayor Mike Duggan announced on Tuesday that Detroit is adding staff to the COVID-19 vaccination call center, expanding operating hours and asking those who are not yet qualified to hold on tight after being flooded on Monday with more than 120,000 nomination requests.
Detroit expects to provide 20,000 coronavirus vaccines by early February, if the state is able to maintain an adequate supply. If additional doses arrive, they hope to increase the number of vaccinations to 30,000, the mayor told reporters on Tuesday.