Most Michigan nursing home residents and staff turned down vaccine

Pharmacy chains have finished up their first round of COVID-19 vaccinations at 414 skilled nursing homes in Michigan, and more than half of staff and residents turned down the shots.

According to the state’s Department of Health and Human Services just 43% of 90,000 people were inoculated. That hampers the state’s effort to loosen up COVID restrictions at nursing homes.

“These numbers we’re seeing are not surprising. But they are troubling, and we need to do with what it takes to address it,” said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the former head of Detroit’s health department, in an interview with MLive.

There is no hard data, but anecdotal reports indicate that most of the people declining to be vaccinated are staff members. Those people are usually much younger than the population of nursing home residents, who are much more at risk of being harmed by the coronavirus.

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