(No caption)

"It's a great day at Michigan Medicine," a tweet from the University of Michigan hospital says with the photos below.

The Ann Arbor facility announced that it "received 1,950 doses of the Pfizer Inc./BioNTech [Covid] vaccine at about 9 a.m. this morning" and added: "We plan to begin vaccinating our employees who are most at risk this week."

Similar deep-freeze boxes reached or are on their way to four other hospitals around the state, including Beaumont Troy and Ascension in Warren.

In all, Michigan gets 84,825 doses initially from Pfizer's plant in Kalamazoo, according to the state health department. Another 173,600 vials of a Moderna vaccine will be shipped if OK'd by the federal Food and Drug Administration this Thursday.


Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, the state's chuef medical officer, and U-M President Mark Schlissel pose with a UPS driver delivering the vaccine. (Photos: Michigan Medicine)

No details are posted yet on where and when eligible recipients can show up to receive the first of two vaccinations against the coronavirus Here's the priority guidance from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, applying Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommendations:

  • Phase 1A: Paid and unpaid health care providers with direct or indirect exposure to patients or infectious materials. Also long-term care residents. 

  • 1B: Workers in essential and critical industries, including emergency responders, health lab workers, mortuary services staff, school and child-care employees and utility workers.

  • 1C: People at high risk for severe Covid illness due to underlying medical conditions. Also those 65 years and older.

  • Phase 2: Mass vaccinations for all adults, starting by next May or June.


Michigan health department figures. (Graphic: Washington Post)

Both vaccines require two doses to be fully inoculated — 21 days apart for Pfizer's and 28 days for Moderna's.

"It is our hope that we will be able to start offering the vaccine to the general public by late spring of 2021," says Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, the governor's chief medical executive.

"There won't be enough doses available to immediately inoculate even the highest-priority recipients," notes The Detroit News.

So hospitals and health systems have developed plans to initially ration the vaccine.

"Within two weeks of vaccine being shipped to Michigan, all hospitals and health departments across the state will receive a shipment," said Lynn Sutfin, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

The state is "holding back" the second dose of vaccine, so a greater number of people can get started with a first dose, said Carolyn Wilson, chief operating officer for Southfield-based Beaumont Health, Michigan's largest hospital system.

Beaumont Troy expects to initially receive about 1,000 doses from Pfizer, and slightly more of Moderna's vaccine next week.


Vials are in this U-M hospital deep freeze.

Other first-stage recipients, in addition to Michigan Medicine, are Ascension Macomb-Oakland Hospital in Warren, Spectrum Health Butterworth in Grand Rapids and MidMichigan Medical Center in Midland. They can store Pfizer's vials at ultra-cold temperatures and serve as regional distribution sites for deliveries to about 50 hospitals and 16 public health departments across the state.

Dr. Khaldun in Lansing expects new shipments weekly. In later stages, hospitals and county health departments will distribute vaccines to drugstores.

The goal is to vaccinate at least 70% of the state's adult population — 5.4 million people — within a year, Khaldun says, according to the Detroit Free Press.


(Graphic: Washington Post)