The first round of Covid-19 vaccines were administered and the first person to receive one in Michigan is a doctor from Grand Rapids.
Dr. Marc McClelland, a pulmonologist who has been treating COVID-19 patients in the ICU, received the shot at Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids.
Four other Spectrum Health staff members have received a first dose of the vaccine. McClelland said he felt no symptoms or side effects thus far. Speaking at a virtual news conference to WZZM TV, McClellan states, Having seen what I ve seen over the last several months and having lived in this COVID world now, this is clearly the path forward and the answer. I am very hopeful right now.
Originally published on December 14, 2020 8:08 pm
Dr. Darryl Elmouchi got the notice Sunday night that the package was on the way. The cardiologist, who serves as president of West Michigan’s largest hospital system, got an alert through Spectrum Health’s command center, saying the initial shipment of 975 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine was on the way.
“It literally felt like we were receiving a package from Amazon or Best Buy,” Elmouchi said during a Zoom call with media on Monday.
Spectrum Health’s main hospital, Butterworth, is a one-hour drive from the Pfizer facility in Portage where workers are churning out thousands of doses of the first vaccine approved in the U.S. to protect against the disease that’s now killed more than 300,000 Americans.
Beaumont employees join ranks of vaccinated frontline workers
For Dr. Nick Gilpin, the director of epidemiology and infection prevention at Beaumont Health System, getting the vaccine Tuesday was the shot in the arm he needed to help combat COVID-19.
Gilpin along with more than a dozen other health care workers were included in a high priority group to receive the Pfizer vaccine on Tuesday at the Beaumont Service Center in Southfield.
Those who had direct or indirect exposure to patients with COVID-19 were considered first. We ve all submitted lists of those frontline workers . so we re going to go through those lists until everybody is hit, said Gilpin who was the first to be vaccinated. Our goal overall is to get all of our health care providers vaccinated within about four to six weeks. It s an aggressive timeline, but we think we can make it work.
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