The COVID-19 surge in Michigan comes as more vaccinations happen across the state, including on college campuses.
Students, faculty and staff at Ferris State University now have access to the COVID-19 vaccine. The university started administering doses Monday and will continue to do so until Thursday.
“We have the expertise to be able to do vaccinations on campus with a college of pharmacy and our nursing program. Between faculty, students and staff, we have that capability and been working together with District 10 health. Initially we started by using our faculty students and staff vaccinate people on their second vaccinations in the phase one group of people who were eligible,” said Bobby Fleischman, Provost and VP for Academic Affairs at Ferris State University.
The vaccination effort comes as Michigan continues to see a surge of cases: The worst in the nation.
“The assumption is that many of these cases are the variant which we know is significantly more transmissible. We are encouraging vaccines because it will prevent you from getting or becoming seriously ill, or even death related to COVID-19 illness but it also prevents you from spreading the virus to others,” said Beth Langenburg, Chief Operating Officer for Spectrum Health, Big Rapids & Reed City Hospitals.
Ferris says they have nearly 2,500 doses to give and can vaccinate up to 588 people per day. They hope giving the campus access to the vaccine creates a safer campus, but also helps the return to life we knew before the pandemic.
“This is a game changer. This gives us an opportunity to not only get out ahead of the surge with the pandemic, but it gives us an opportunity to have an even safer campus our campus through our testing, and our wastewater testing that we’ve done we’ve been able to locate and eradicate where we see potential outbreaks,” said Fleischman.
© 2023 - 910 Media Group
