More than a quarter of Isabella County vaccinated
More than a quarter of people eligible for COVID-19 vaccines in Isabella County have had at least one shot, while in Gratiot that number is one in five.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 15,604 people in Isabella County have had one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 5,549 have had a second, according to state records. The number of people over the age of 16 in Isabella County is 59,116.
In Gratiot County, 6,922 of the county’s 33,817 people eligible have had their first shot of COVID-19 vaccine, or 20.5 percent, and 4,161 have had their second. In Clare County, 23.2 percent of the 22,376 people eligible — of 5,931 — have had their first shot and 3,160 have had their second shot.
The three vaccinations authorized by the Food and Drug Administration are intended for use in everyone over the age of 16.
Two of those vaccines — the
Pfizer and Moderna MRNA vaccines — require two shots to provoke a full immune response against COVID-19. The other, from Johnson & Johnson, is a more traditional vaccine that requires just one shot.
By far, the most commonly administered vaccine in Isabella, Gratiot and Clare counties continues to be the Moderna vaccine. The state has shipped 14,700 doses of it to Isabella County, 4,000 to Clare County and 8,300 to Gratiot County.
While all three vaccines are 100 percent effective at preventing death from COVID-19, Moderna is considered the most effective at also preventing any disease or severe disease.
Pfizer’s two-shot vaccine is so far the second most administered vaccine in the three counties, with 4,296 doses administered in Isabella County. No doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been administered in Gratiot or Clare counties.
The one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, authorized for use just last week, has been administered to 1,400 people; 500 each in Isabella and Gratiot counties and 400 in Clare County.
Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are built on relatively new technology for vaccines, relying on single strands of simple genetic code to tell the body what kind of immune response to build. Those viruses are coded to tell the body to create antibodies that can identify the protein spike the SARS-COV-2 virus uses to hijack cells to replicate itself.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is built on older, more familiar technology. A weakened adenovirus cell, which is not known to cause severe disease in people at full strength, is piggybacked with a strand of DNA from a SARS-COV-2 virus, which allows someone’s immune system to recognize the virus and generate antibodies to fight it.
While it is not as efficacious in preventing severe illness as the MRNA vaccinations from Pfizer and Moderna, it only requires one shot and doesn’t require special freezer storage.
Ten new confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported Tuesday across the three counties by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. No new deaths were reported.
Seven of those cases were in Isabella County, bringing its cumulative total to 3,605, with 72 deaths. Two of those cases were in Gratiot County, bringing its cumulative total to 2,474, with 100 deaths. One new confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported in Clare County for a cumulative total of 1,412, with 68 deaths.
Elsewhere in midmichigan, no new deaths were reported, with new and cumulative cases and deaths as follows:
• In Gladwin County, no new cases were reported for a cumulative total of 1,266, with 40 deaths;
• In Mecosta County, an additional seven cases were reported for a cumulative total of 1,945, with 19 deaths;
• In Midland County, an additional 30 cases were reported for a cumulative total of 4,524, with 62 deaths; and,
• In Montcalm County, an additional 16 cases were reported for a cumulative total of 3,287, with 86 deaths.
Statewide, another 29 deaths were reported for a total of 15,699 and another 954 cases were reported for a cumulative total of 598,968. Eight of those deaths were discovered after a review of death certificates.