April 7, 2021
Bi-Weekly County Executive Newsletter
Dear Friends:
It’s been less than a week since we opened up yet another large scale vaccination site to help us in our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and I think it’s a good time to remind ourselves again to thank the phenomenal employees of the Oakland County Health and Human Services division for the work they’re doing to help us end this deadly virus.
They continue to staff dozens of vaccination sites around the county each week in addition to providing all the other services the health department offers to county residents.
It hasn’t been easy work. More than 400 people who work in the Health division have shifted and adapted, trained and retrained and stepped up to help keep us all safe. Since they opened testing sites and began contact tracing for COVID-19 cases last April, they haven’t stopped moving at full speed.
Our health division employees – who run the gamut from nurses, clerks, supervisors, environmental sanitarians, epidemiologists, investigators and health educators - are traveling from Holly to Hazel Park, Novi to Rochester, to staff the vaccination clinics often standing for hours in open-air venues to make sure shots get delivered at drive-thru sites.
They’re making sure that county residents can get shots in fire halls, community centers, churches, convention centers and union halls. And just this past Friday, they set up another large scale vaccination site on an indoor soccer field at the United Wholesale Mortgage Sports Complex in Pontiac, where the lines flowed quickly and smoothly and more than 1,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines made it into Oakland County arms.
That site is expected to ramp up to 3,000 shots per day and will have the capacity to deliver 5,000 doses a day when the supply meets our demand. And now that eligibility for shots has opened up to anyone 16 or older, we’ll need all the doses we can get.
COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution in Oakland County
These exceptional people are the reason I’m beginning to feel hopeful that we’ll reach our 70% vaccination rate goal by the Fourth of July, which puts us a step closer to so many things that we’ve missed over the past year – family gatherings, barbecues, concerts at Meadowbrook, fireworks and Tigers baseball games.
The state has been steadily increasing the number of doses they’re sending us each week. We’re up to more than 37,000 this week, after starting out with only 1,950 doses a week in December.
Our hospital and pharmacy partners are getting doses directly from the state and more and more health care providers are stepping up and helping us deliver the doses we get each week. This week, we sent doses to 40 providers across the county.
And we’re making progress. More than 70% of our seniors have received at least one dose of the vaccine and more than 40% of our eligible population of more than 1 million people have gotten at least one shot.
Once you sign up and get an appointment from our Save Your Spot site, getting the vaccine is a snap. Our public health division is well-staffed and the rock stars who work there are doing an amazing job.
And while I’m still worried about the surge in COVID-19 cases over the past month or so, we’re really starting to see positive vaccination numbers that will bring the surge to a halt. One by one, I’m confident we’ll make it through this pandemic.
With Hope and Gratitude,
Dave Coulter
Oakland County Executive
COVID-19 BY THE NUMBERS
- Number of cases: 79,428
- Number of deaths: 1,615
- Total doses administered in Oakland: 650,274
- Number of people getting at least one dose: 416,923
- Number of people fully vaccinated: 242,672
- Percentage of seniors vaccinated: 70.9%
Gov. Whitmer Joins Coulter to open new large scale vaccination site in Pontiac
Another large-scale vaccination site at the United Wholesale Mortgage Sports Complex in Pontiac opened its doors last week and delivered more than 1,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses on its first day.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer joined Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter to celebrate the opening and hailed it as another step toward the end of the coronavirus pandemic.
Troy company honored for workforce development efforts
Witzenmann USA, a flexible metal parts manufacturer in Troy, and one of its star employees, the late Darius May of Pontiac were recognized last week for their commitment to workforce development.
The Michigan Works! Association Impact Award, given in partnership with the Oakland County Michigan Works! Office, was awarded to Witzenmann USA and May’s family during a special virtual ceremony.
Witzenmann hosts high school students during Oakland County’s Manufacturing Day and has worked to train apprentices with assistance from the Oakland Michigan Works! Office. May joined Witzenmann in 2013 and rose through the ranks, getting help from both the company and Oakland County to overcome transportation barriers he faced in getting to work each day.
Oakland County partners with SMART to bust barriers to getting vaccine
Oakland County and SMART are teaming up to provide easy access and rides to COVID-19 vaccination sites around the county.
Any resident who has transportation needs simply checks a when signing up for a vaccine to indicate they need a ride. The Health Division staff will work with SMART to arrange transportation for the client.
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