Mecosta County began vaccinating people ages 65 and older on Monday, but the county is still largely working through the vaccination of healthcare workers, as well.
"To be honest, we're not ready to vaccinate the entire population of Phase 1B. We need to get through that Phase 1A, but we're starting to kind of be able to do a little bit of a balance shift," said Karen Ripke, an emergency preparedness specialist with District Health Department #10, which oversees 10 counties, including Mecosta.
Last week, DHD#10 had to shut down vaccination registration, when it found out it would be receiving less doses.
"We thought we were getting a lot more vaccine than we did, so we had planned for 7,000 vaccinations across our 10 counties," Ripke said.
The appointments were all filled within a matter of hours. Ripke said with the help of regional partners DHD#10 will be able to vaccinate most of those who made an appointment, despite their shipment allotting 3,900 doses.
Many COVID-19 providers in the state have reported receiving less doses than they'd hoped for on a weekly basis, which the state has said is due to the limited supply available at the federal level each week.
Since shipments are varying week-to-week, local health departments are struggling to plan clinics in advance.
"So, now we're going to slow down just a little bit and make sure that we have enough vaccine before we open up appointments for the following week," she said.
All 10 counties are still vaccinating healthcare workers, who fall in Phase 1A, so Ripke says they are trying to find a balance moving forward.
"We're doing our best, we're reaching out and partnering with all the agencies to make sure they're checking with their employees as to who wants it," she said.
DHD#10 will now set aside appointments for healthcare workers to ensure they get the chance to be vaccinated when new appointments open up each week.
Clinics are expected to run anywhere from 3 to 6 days a week, vaccinating up to several hundred people a day in the larger counties.
"I wish we had more vaccine that we could you know move this along very quickly, because we have plans to do that, but unfortunately we have to go based off of the vaccine we have, and then make sure we're following those priority groups," Ripke said.
Sign up for alerts to keep track of when appointments open back up each week at DHD10.org.
Michigan's vaccination phases:
Phase 1A: Paid and unpaid persons serving in healthcare settings who have the potential for direct or indirect exposure to patients or infectious materials and are unable to work from home as well as residents in long term care facilities.
Phase 1B: Persons 65 years of age or older and frontline essential workers in critical infrastructure.
Phase 1C: Individuals 16 years of age or older at high risk of severe illness due to COVID-19 infection and some other essential workers whose position impacts life, safety and protection during the COVID-19 response.
Phase 2: Individuals 16 years of age or older.
RELATED VIDEO:
►Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.
Have a news tip? Email news@13onyourside.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.