Capitol News

Doctors in Michigan have seen a significant drop in COVID-19 cases, thanks to a prompt and widespread vaccine rollout.

Most importantly, the decline in cases is particularly apparent in senior long-term care facilities and nursing homes. Over the last two months — Dec. 28 to Feb. 25 — the state has witnessed a staggering case decline of 91% among nursing home residents. Similarly, cases within facility staff populations have fallen by 83%, according to reporting by Bridge Michigan.

The nursing home numbers are particularly impressive when compared to the state’s overall 65% drop. 

Most telling about the decline in cases is what it says about the effectiveness of the vaccine, which was an unknown quantity when it was first introduced. 

Dr. Teena Chopra, who is in charge of infection control at eight hospitals within the Detroit Medical System, is heartened by the vaccine’s performance. “I think vaccines had a huge role to play,” she told Bridge Michigan. Chopra is also a professor of infectious diseases at Wayne State University.

The vaccine’s success is welcome news for senior facilities, given that such institutions’ COVID-19 deaths accounted for 37% of Michigan’s total virus-related fatalities since the pandemic’s outbreak in March 2020.

In large part, the early stages of the rollout were aided by pharmacy chains, such as Walgreens and CVS, who brought the vaccine to hundreds of long-term care facilities and nursing homes throughout the state. At these facilities, 200,000 doses have been given to residents and staff members.

In the first week of vaccinations, state officials reported some 827 new coronavirus infections within the nursing home resident population and 738 cases among staff. Conversely, the Feb. 22 report revealed that resident infections had fallen to just 73 new cases and staff members 125.

According to Bridge Michigan, state officials strongly believe that the vaccine is responsible for the sharp decline in cases; this is in addition to the moratorium on close-contact activities and indoor dining, which ran from mid-November to February.

By Dec. 1, positive tests in Michigan averaged a troubling 13% and there were about 6,500 new cases per day. But since the vaccine’s rollout, the state’s daily average is down to 850 cases — and a shade over 3% of tests are turning out positive. 

It’s also important to note that the vaccine itself is administered in two stages. Residents who’ve only received the first dose still enjoy a certain level of protection, and those who become infected in this population seem to exhibit minimized sickness.

Dr. Raza Haque, director of the geriatrics department at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, saw three patients who had been vaccinated and still contracted the virus, but fortunately they showed only mild symptoms.

However, lowering the number of cases reported in nursing homes has required other strict regulations, in addition to the administration of vaccines. Limits on face-to-face visits with family members, for example, remains in place as a supplementary safeguard against COVID-19 infections. 

But Haque says he hopes that the vaccine will allow officials in Michigan to relax such restrictions statewide, thus allowing families to have more in-person contact with their loved ones.