Lt. Gov Gilchrist says supply of COVID-19 vaccine will meet April 4 demand

FOX 2 - In less than one month on April 5th all Michiganders age 16 and up will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer made the announcement Friday, with the goal to get 70 percent of the population vaccinated, but with the lower age requirements comes a major increase in demand.

Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist said there should be enough.

"I am confident that we will have the supply to meet that demand and keep that demand as high as possible," Gilchrist said.

Gilchrist says the allocations from the federal government have been increasing every week and more vaccination sites are opening up.

Health professionals will soon begin administering 6,000 doses a day at Ford Field.

RELATED: Henry Ford Health System chosen to run Ford Field mass vaccination site

"We're going to increase the options, increase the avenues for people to be able to get the vaccine," Gilchrist said. "That's what's ultimately going to get us to our goal."

When it comes to senior citizens, the most vulnerable population, Macomb County has been aggressively working to get as many people as vaccinated as possible, said Executive Mark Hackel.

"To date here in Macomb county that effort has paid off," he said. "Because right now, 93,000 senior citizens have been vaccinated out of 152,000 and that is almost at that saturation point, we're almost at 70 percent, which is great."

Lowering the age requirement to 16 years old is a good idea in theory, but Hackel said he has some concerns

"We've been asking for 50,000 doses a week and we're getting just under 8,000 a week," he said. "So obviously what we can do vs what we're about to get, is the challenge. There's no question there's a limited amount of doses."

Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist

Some people are still hesitant to get the vaccine.

"We can trust this vaccine way more than we can trust the coronavirus," Gilchrist said. "We don't know what would happen to a person if they contracted this infection and I know that I've had to say goodbye to 27 people from COVID-19. That is not something I want to see. And we know these vaccines are safe, they are effective.

"They have been proven to prevent people from getting very sick and prevent people from passing away and that is ultimately what we want."