Michigan Has Reached It’s Covid Vaccination Goal What’s Next?

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) announced yesterday via a press release that Michigan “has reached the state's 70% goal of eligible residents age 16 and over receiving at least one dose of the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine”.

In the press release, they stated that approximately 5.7 million Michiganders have received at least one of the “safe and effective” Covid-19 vaccination shots.  Interesting that they feel the need to state in their press release that the shot is “safe and effective”.

The MDHHS chief medical executive, Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian stated the following:

"We know the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines are our way out of the pandemic…Vaccines are how we prevent infectious variants from spreading and threatening our ability to contain the pandemic. It's important to take a moment to celebrate the hard work of those who have developed these vaccines, as well as those who have administered vaccines these past many months. We also thank Michiganders who have done their part to keep their families and communities safe by getting vaccinated."

The question now is what’s next?  Have we reached the herd immunity that we heard quite a bit about early in the vaccination process but now hear nothing about from medical officials.

The MDHHS director Elizabeth Hertel stated:

"This is great news and we have been looking forward to surpassing this milestone since the vaccines became available…We urge Michiganders who are eligible to get vaccinated as soon as possible and to continue practices we know help stop the spread of COVID-19, including wearing masks and social distancing. The vaccine continues to be how we will return to normalcy in the state, and we thank all of those who have done their part to end this pandemic."

Hopefully, these medical professionals are correct and the vaccine will bring the virus under control.

Yesterday Michigan reported 21,034 new positive cases which average out to 7,011 per day.  They also reported an additional 95 Covid-19 deaths which average out to approximately 32 deaths a day.  The new positive case and death numbers are worse than they were last October and November.

Also last Saturday, 19% of Covid-19 tests came back positive. This came in as the highest single-day percentage statewide since the start of the pandemic.

Yesterday Michigan reached a 7 month high COVID-19 hospitalizations with more than 3,000 people ailing from the virus.