The MDHHS data, released Monday, appears to contradict remarks made last week by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who touted the effectiveness of approved vaccines, but overstated their ability to help recipients avoid a hospital stay.
“Now, the good news is in our hospitals, we’re seeing fewer people going into ICU, the median age has dropped,” Whitmer said Friday at a press event in Pontiac, where she toured a mass vaccination clinic. “Zero percent of the people in our hospitals right now have been vaccinated, which tells you the vaccines work.”
The state’s infection data had been collected through March 31, Sutfin told Bridge.
It is not clear how many of the roughly 2,800 people hospitalized with COVID at the time of Whitmer’s remarks on Friday had been vaccinated.
At Trinity Health Michigan, a dozen of more than 3,000 health care workers tested positive after being fully vaccinated, but none have been seriously ill, said Dr. Rosalie Tocco-Bradley, chief clinical officer.
According to MDHHS, 246 people tested positive for COVID-19 two weeks or more after their second Pfizer or Moderna doses or after their first and only dose of the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, Lynn Sutfin, department spokesperson, told Bridge Michigan Monday.
With more than 2.9 million Michiganders having received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, battle lines are already forming over the legality — and ethics — of requiring “vaccine passports” for people to enter businesses, schools or hospitals, or to travel.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration has sidestepped questions about whether it might back such a mandate.
Meanwhile, the head of an organization that represents the state’s 15 public universities told Bridge Michigan that a decision on whether to require verification of COVID-19 vaccines on campuses is “under constant discussion.”
www.bridgemi.com/michigan-health-watch/michigan-gears-next-covid-19-fight-vaccine-passports
h/t kpm