Covid shots are more precious than PlayStation 5. Demand far exceeds supply. Detroit s just-opened appointment hotline for residents age 75 or older, plus essential workers, was overwhelmed by extremely high volumes, the city says. Operators working for Rock Connections, a branch of Quicken Loans, are filling 20,000 drive-through vaccine appointments through Feb. 5 at TCF Center garage. Phone lines were jammed by 100,000 calls in four hours Monday, though most were from ineligible people. Many callers are too young or not in qualified jobs, says Hakim Berry, the city s chief operating officer. We do not have the capacity to answer questions from people under 75 or non-Detroiters about vaccinations in general, he says in an early afternoon statement. If you are not eligible to book the vaccine, please do not tie up the call lines.
“Gloves!” a Wayne County Public Health Division employee says.
“Can somebody take my picture? I wanna picture of this,” her partner says excitedly.
An insert is lifted out of a large box. What looks like fog streams out.
“And there it is,” one employee says as she peers inside. “That’s the box.”
An employee pulls out and opens a smaller box, removing a tray of the most precious cargo health department officials in Michigan have ever handled.
Their first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Get a tray. We got two,” one of the employees says in a nearly two-minute video of employees unpacking the vaccine Thursday. “We’re all very excited.”