Michigan Seeks To Buy COVID Vaccine Instead Of Waiting For Them

MICHIGAN — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said she wants to directly purchase up to 100,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines for Michigan instead of waiting for the federal government to allocate the doses to states.

The governor also said in the letter that she and eight other governors had sent a letter to President Donald Trump requesting a more aggressive approach to vaccine distribution, but their letter went unanswered.

“We remain ready to accelerate distribution to get doses into arms,” Whitmer said. "Toward that end, I am writing to request permission for the State of Michigan to make a one-time purchase of up to 100,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine directly from Pfizer to be distributed and administered consistent with CDC guidelines and the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine.”

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Last week, Whitmer, along with governors from California, Kansas, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin, Washington and Oregon sent a letter to Azar requesting that the federal government distribute the millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses that they said are currently being held back by the Trump Administration.

The federal government currently has upwards of 50 percent of currently produced vaccines held back by the administration for reasons unknown, officials said. After the governors sent the letter, the incoming Biden administration announced that it would release all of the available vaccine once in office.

In Michigan, demand for the COVID-19 vaccines has been high. Oakland and Macomb counties have reported that they need more doses of the vaccine to meet their demand.

Demand for the vaccine prompted one Michigan hospital system to more than triple its server power after it was inundated with people requesting vaccines.

Beaumont Health said that it processes about 900 new myBeaumontChart accounts on a typical day, but on Friday, while nearly 9,000 people activated accounts, thousands of others could not access the website. At one point, more than 25,000 users simultaneously attempted to register for myBeaumontChart, according to the hospital.