Whitmer orders commission to promote COVID vaccine safety
With coronavirus cases and deaths rising, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced an executive order Thursday to create the bipartisan Protect Michigan Commission advisory committee to raise awareness of the safety and effectiveness of an approved COVID-19 vaccine and how to get it when it becomes available.
“With a safe and effective vaccine on the horizon, the Protect Michigan Commission is bringing our state together once again to ensure that every Michigander has the information and resources they need to get vaccinated at the appropriate time,” said Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, one of the commission’s co-chairs. “Our clearest path to healthy communities, a growing economy, and kids learning in their classrooms is through this vaccine.”
Currently, Pfizer and Moderna have submitted requests for emer
gency use authorization of COVID-19 vaccines to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is developing a plan to distribute the vaccine in Michigan, with a focus on the most vulnerable populations, frontline workers, and educators.
MDHHS is taking applications to serve on the Protect Michigan Commission at michigan.gov/appointments until Dec. 28.
Michigan expects to re
ceive about 257,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines initially if the federal government authorizes them for emergency use this month, enough to immunize roughly 128,000 residents, a top doctor said Thursday.
The priority remains frontline health care workers and people living and working in long-term care facilities such as nursing homes, said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, the state’s chief medical executive.
A U.S. government advisory panel was convening Thursday to decide whether to endorse mass use of Pfizer’s vaccine.
A final decision and the first shots could fol
low within days. Later this month, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to pass judgment on another vaccine, developed by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health.
The federal government estimates Michigan will get approximately 84,000 doses from Pfizer and 173,000 doses from Moderna in their first shipments, Khaldun said. Both vaccines require two shots.
Whitmer, whose health department has prohibited indoor restaurant dining and closed various entertainment venues to limit the spread of the virus, announced that those businesses can postpone by a
month their monthly sales, use and tax withholding payments that are due Dec. 20.
The governor’s announcement of the new commission is a backdrop at this point to the rising number of deaths and new cases from the coronavirus.
The state Thursday announced 5,937 new confirmed cases of the virus and 182 new deaths statewide with slightly more than two weeks until Christmas.
In all, the state has 421,137 confirmed cases and 10,395 deaths from the virus since it began counting last March.
Excluded from the daily and cumulative totals are County has had 47,307 cases and deaths considcases of the virus and 1,401 ered “probable” since they deaths, Macomb County may, or may not, become has had 41,979 cases and confirmed cases and deaths 1,329 deaths, Wayne County in the future. has had 46,857 cases and
Hundreds of cases and 1,572 deaths, and Detroit deaths in double digits were has had 22,727 cases and reported Thursday in the 1,624 deaths. southeast Michigan counIn all, the three southties of Oakland, Wayne, and east Michigan counties plus Macomb. Detroit have accounted for
There were 794 new cases 37.7% of the cases but 57% and 13 deaths in Wayne of the deaths from the virus.County,611casesand21 deaths in Oakland County, lso reporting high numand 517 cases and 25 deaths bers Thursday was the west in Macomb County. Detroit, Michigan county of Kent, a part of Wayne County, with 544 new cases and 12 separately had 209 cases deaths. and two deaths.
Since the pandemic took root in March, Oakland