Detroit offers 3rd vaccine dose to some residents as mayor warns of virus spread

Mayor Mike Duggan warned Detroit residents Monday to get vaccinated before the city and Michigan begin to resemble a number of southern and Midwest states inundated with COVID-19 infections primarily due to the delta variant.

The city will begin giving third shots Tuesday of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to residents with compromised immune systems, Duggan told reporters.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said people withweakened immune systemscan get an extra dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to better protect them as the delta variant continues to surge.

Drive-up vaccinations will resume at Detroit's downtown convention centre for people who also have had organ transplants, have diseases affecting their immune system or are taking medication that affect the immune system.

Duggan said Detroit has 30,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines on-hand. The need for third shots is being driven by the numbers of people who have chosen not to get the shots, Duggan said.

"There is an enormous river of COVID transmission among the unvaccinated," Duggan said. "Unfortunately, it allows for things like the delta variant. And who knows if we get another variant? Because if this keeps spreading it's a matter of time before this virus mutates and we're talking about a different kind of variant."

About 225,000, or 42 per cent, of Detroit residents have been vaccinated for COVID-19. More than 64 per centof Michigan residents age 16 an older have received at least one vaccine dose.

The COVID-19 death tollhas started soaring again as the delta variant tears through the nation's unvaccinated population and fills up hospitals with patients, many of whom are younger than patients typically were during earlier phases of the pandemic.

"You can see the direction it is going," Duggan said. "It is a matter of time until it hits Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin. I don't know if that's September, October, November, but if you look at the pattern of what's happened over and over, there is a good degree of likelihood that Florida's July could be Michigan's November."

Cases in Detroit rose from fewer than 16 per day in late June to 67 on Aug. 2. Detroit also is experiencing an increase in hospitalizations, according to city Chief Public Health Officer Denise Fair.

"If we had more people to get the vaccine we would get to community immunity which is 70 per centof the community getting the vaccine," she said.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Detroithas recordedmore than 52,800 cases and more than 2,300 deaths.