By April 13, a little more than 100,000 Ingham County residents, 42.9% of the county’s population, received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
At the heart of Ingham County’s vaccination effort is the Michigan State University Pavilion for Agriculture and Livestock Education, which opened Dec. 21 for vaccinations.
MSU works with the Ingham County Health Department, which receives the vaccines from the state, to administer vaccines via drive-through at the pavilion, eight hours a day Tuesday through Friday.
Lt. Dave Oslund, emergency management unit commander for the MSU Police Department, said the university works with the City of East Lansing and Ingham County’s emergency management unit.
“It was really the four different groups having some conversations about what makes sense and where we can do the most,” Oslund said. “When we walked through the pavilion and we started talking about available space and traffic patterns, that became the primary site for Ingham County.”
Oslund said 300 vaccines were administered per day in December. By mid-March, more than 1,600 doses were administered daily.
With more shipments, the pavilion has offered vaccines on several Saturdays. The health department has also offered pop-up clinics in neighborhoods across the county, according to Oslund.
MSU has 49,695 students enrolled this year . The total student body at MSU accounts for about 17% of Ingham County.
Since receiving vaccines directly from the state, MSU began administering them to students at the pavilion on April 9.
University spokesperson Emily Gerkin Guerrant said MSU President Samuel L. Stanley advocated to the governor for MSU to directly receive vaccines, especially with 10% of spring classes occurring in person.
Guerrant said it is important to offer the vaccine to students before they leave campus for the summer, especially because most vaccines require a second dose.
Every year, Guerrant said MSU surveys students on issues. This year, it asked students if they plan to receive the vaccine. Of 1,000 students surveyed, 80% said they plan to receive the vaccine, 12% were unsure and 6% said they do not plan to get vaccinated.
Guerrant said these results were encouraging because the university does not need to put as much effort into convincing students to get the vaccine.
“But we do have to spend time communicating about where to get it, how to get it, where to sign up, so we are working closely with Linda Vail, we are working closely with the state,” Guerrant said.
Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail spoke to the Associated Students of Michigan State University 57th General Assembly on April 1. Vail expressed her concern about individuals who do not think they need to get the vaccine because they had the virus.
The coronavirus acts differently than measles or chickenpox, said Vail. People can get sick again because the virus is more prone to mutation, like the flu.
“It doesn’t matter if you had it before, you will get it again,” said Vail. “The immunity that you get from having the disease is not the same as the immunity that you will get from having the vaccine.”
Norman J. Beauchamp, MSU executive vice president for health sciences, said there has been an emergency plan for almost 10 years that would allow MSU to vaccinate up to 2,000 people a day.
Beauchamp said at a University Council meeting the goal is to vaccinate all students by the end of summer.
State Rep. Julie Brixie, who visited the pavilion in February with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, said there is high participation among older adults in both the county and state. According to state data, Ingham County has vaccinated about 80% of residents age 65 and above, which outpaces the state vaccination rate of the same age group by about eight percentage points.
Brixie expects high participation in the county because of the higher educational attainment rates compared to other counties. Compared to the eight other counties in Michigan’s Preparedness Region No. 1, Ingham County ranks fifth in the percent of population with at least one COVID-19 vaccine and seventh in the percent of population that’s completed the vaccine.
Officials from the health department, Sparrow Health System and MSU have held forums to answer questions and to encourage people to receive vaccines. Brixie said there have also been forums for people who don’t speak English as their first language.
Brixie said the Trump administration allocated $5.6 billion to Michigan for COVID-19. Brixie, a Democrat, said, “Legislative Republicans are still playing politics with vaccine funding and they haven’t passed through all of the federal funds that were made available by the Trump administration.”
Oslund said challenges at the pavilion have been cold weather and finding enough volunteers. Some of these volunteers have been MSU faculty. Volunteers could receive vaccines for their assistance.
“I think we have the capacity to probably do close to 2,000 shots a day in that same eight hours if we have enough volunteers,” Oslund said. “I think the surprise that I’ve had is that we haven’t had any major hiccups, it’s gone very smoothly.”
Oslund said he does not see the pavilion remaining in operation past summer, since vaccines will be given at more focused clinics.