Neighborhood fire leaves 1 unaccounted, Detroit cancels J&J vaccines, road rage suspects arrested in Warren

Three homes on Detroit's east side caught fire in one of the larger blazes the city has seen in recent years early Tuesday morning. 

While the middle home is vacant, the other two are both occupied. 

Fire crews are currently searching for one elderly person who is unaccounted for. 

The Detroit Fire Department initially responded to the 6600 block of Burns around 3:30 a.m. after getting reports that three homes had caught fire.

All next to each other, the second home caught fire first, however, it's not clear what first ignited flames. 

After that, the fire spread to two adjacent homes, both inhabited by residents. 

So far, emergency responders have been unable to locate an 80-year-old woman who lived in one of the homes, leading the family to fear the worst. One family friend said he'd miss all the support she offered to everyone. 

"(I'll miss) the good cooking she do. The jokes she make. The laughter, the response, just getting the chance to spend time and talk with her and stuff," said Harold Graham. 

It does not appear that anyone else was injured. An update from the Detroit Fire Department will arrive shortly. 

Detroit, Oakland County cancels Johnson & Johnson vaccine appointments

The city of Detroit and Oakland County is pausing all of its Johnson & Johnson vaccine administrations, following guidance from the CDC to hold off on giving more shots due to concerns of blood clotting in some people that receive the one-shot dose.

Public health officials are asking anyone with a J&J vaccine schedule today should keep it and when they go in for their shot, they'll receive the Pfizer vaccine instead. 

Appointments for the rest of the week will be delayed as a result of the news.

Detroit had planned on using Johnson & Johnson vaccines at its neighborhood clinics throughout the week. Because there is only a one-shot requirement, it would have sped up coverage of vaccines in the city.

Road rage shooting suspects crash in Warren

Suspects involved in a road rage shooting incident in Hazel Park led police on a chase through Metro Detroit before crashing in Warren Monday afternoon.

Two 19-year-olds and two 18-year-olds were inside a 2007 Dodge Nitro in the area of Woodward Heights and Couzens when someone inside fired shots at a city work truck that had two people inside it.

Police responding to the incident located the suspect Dodge near Eight Mile and John R and attempted to pull it over. Instead, the car fled, before crashing on a residential street near Nine Mile and Van Dyke.Three of the four occupants were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. 

The two victims were unharmed from the gunfire. Police say during the chase, a handgun was thrown from the vehicle, which was recovered. Two other semi-automatic handguns were also recovered. Hazel Park police are continuing to investigate.

Michigan hospitalizations exceeding December high

You can't vaccinate yourself out of the latest surge. That's the message that the federal government has for Michigan, which has opted to push for more vaccinations as a way to mitigate the rising hospitalizations due to COVID-19.

And currently, Michigan's hospitalizations are starting to hit their autumn highs. On Monday, 3,918 adults were reportedly in the hospital due to COVID-19 complications, higher than the peak the state witnessed in the fall. Several hospitals have already reached capacity.

It's the latest benchmark in what's been an incredible but depressing shift in Michigan's coronavirus status. Currently, the state has the highest infection rate of COVID-19 in the country. 

While the vaccines are proving to be an effective tool for reducing the severe symptoms for people who have already gotten the vaccine, many in the state haven't. Adults in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, are taking up hospital beds at a much higher rate than the two previous surges. 

Nursing home staff not vaccinated leading to isolated patients

When Kim Brancato went to see her mom who has been living at a nursing home in Mount Clemens, it was only a window visit. Brancato's mom has Alzheimer's and dementia, which made it difficult for her to understand why she couldn't hug her daughter.

"So I've done one window visit with her and she got mad and threw a box of Kleenex because she didn't understand why I couldn't be in there with her, inside with her," she said.

While the residents have been vaccinated, not all staff members have been - either by choice or by timing. That means it's up to negative tests for two weeks to determine if a family can see the relatives they've been isolated from for over a year. 

Kevin Evans, the executive director of the facility, says some of the health orders haven't taken into account the PPE capacity that nursing homes now have. He says they should be allowed to use a resident-centered approach. 

What else we're watching

  1. Doses offered during Detroit's neighborhood vaccine week will be at Randolph CTE School at 17101 Hunnell D2. The shots will be given from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. 
  2. Several Michigan businesses have released a statement regarding the new set of voting laws that Republicans introduced in the state legislature earlier this year. They ask the laws "be developed in a bipartisan fashion to preserve public confidence in our elections"
  3. Mustang sales rose .3% last year, beating out other competitors with 80,577 global sales in 2020
  4. There is a new web page for informing the public about the state's new expungement laws. More information is available here
  5. The state still hasn't figured out what to do with billions of federal funding that has been holed up in the legislature. 

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Daily Forecast

It's going to be a pleasant Tuesday, with temperatures reaching 66 with some clouds to dot the sky. There will be some colder air on the way for the middle of the week.

U.S. is recommends "pause" of Johnson & Johnson vaccine over blood clotting issues

The U.S. is recommending a "pause" in administration of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to investigate reports of potentially dangerous blood clots.

In a joint statement Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said it was investigating clots in six women in the days after vaccination, in combination with reduced platelet counts. More than 6.8 million doses of the J&J vaccine have been administered in the U.S.

U.S. federal distribution channels, including mass vaccination sites, will pause the use of the J&J shot, and states and other providers are expected to follow.

CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet Wednesday to discuss the cases and the FDA has also launched an investigation of the cases.

"Until that process is complete, we are recommending a pause in the use of this vaccine out of an abundance of caution," Dr. Anne Schuchat, Principal Deputy Director of the CDC and Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research said in a joint statement.