Ingham County’s top health official is concerned news of vaccinated people coming down with coronavirus infections could discourage some from getting their shots.
A new state report indicates that 246 people in Michigan have come down with COVID-19 despite being vaccinated, and three have died.
While alarming, that’s a tiny percentage of the number of people in the state who have been vaccinated.
Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail says there still is broad transmission and many people remain unvaccinated. Those factors increase the risk that a vaccinated person can contract COVID. “Once we have both a very high efficacy vaccine and herd immunity," she explains, "we should see far less of that.”
Vail adds that several factors might be to blame, stating that "some people perhaps got exposed days after their first dose, or in some cases basically may have been incubating and not tested positive, or not feeling symptoms yet before their first dose, or in-between doses.”
More than 90,000 Ingham County residents now have received at least one dose of vaccine.
There currently are 148 coronavirus patients at Lansing hospitals. Sixteen are in intensive care, and 15 are on ventilators. The coronavirus death toll in Ingham County now stands at 303.
