What to know as kids COVID-19 vaccines roll out, barricade in Harper Woods, fiance to mom charged with murder

THURSDAY NEWS HIT - With the COVID-19 vaccine now available to young kids, health officials are taking their pandemic fight to a new phase, inoculating one of the last major groups of people in the U.S. still threatened by infection.

Beginning Thursday, the Wayne County health department will begin administering some of its 3,000 available shots to kids ages 5-11. They'll be the first of several pharmacy providers and hospital chains to be rolling out doses over the next few weeks. 

There are 825,000 kids in Michigan that are now eligible to receive the shot. Further inoculation among this group will make schools and daycares safer from infection for both children and staff.

Meijer is also accepting appointments to administer shots. Walgreens will begin administering them Saturday and CVS on Sunday. Michigan Medicine will begin on Monday and Beaumont will begin offering shots sometime next week.

For those that have already received the COVID-19 vaccine, they're probably familiar with the side effects that follow the first and second injection:

The arm where the shot was given gets sore and there might be some swelling and redness at the injection site. The rest of the body might go through a bout of fatigue and tiredness, a headache, muscle pain, chills, and a fever. These are normal. It's extremely rare that any side effect becomes more serious.

But is it the same for children? With kids ages 5-11 now eligible to receive their own COVID-19 vaccine, what can they expect after getting their shot?

The short answer is, about the same as other people getting the shot.

Even with a lower dose, the side effects are about the same: aches in the arm where a child got the shot, a headache, muscle pain, fever, and chills, throughout the rest of the body. These are normal and a sign the body is responding to the vaccine by building immunity against COVID-19.

Some kids have no side effects at all. 

There are a few key differences between the version now offered to children and those that have been administered to teens and adults. Most notably is the dosage, which is one-third the strength of the adult version. It is intended to be a two-shot regiment taken three weeks apart.

The shot that adults receive is 30 micrograms of RNA, whereas the shot intended for kids is only 10 micrograms. It's possible that even younger kids could someday receive the same vaccine with an even smaller dosage.

According to Pfizer, the lower dose was chosen to minimize the side effects exhibited by the shot but still provide strong immunity.

"If you're using an antibiotic or any other chemotherapy, those doses are dependant on weight factors," said Dr. Bishara Freij, the pediatric infectious disease chief at Beaumont. "Vaccine responses are due to the immune system identifying what's been injected. It will process the product then start forming antibodies that are independent of the shot."

Children typically produce a stronger immune system compared to adults. That's why they often don't need the same number of shots as older teens or adults for other viruses. And yet, smaller dosages can still produce effective or even more effective immune responses in kids compared to adults.

Pfizer tested four different vaccine doses on 2,268 kids ages 5-11: 3 micrograms, 10 micrograms, 20 micrograms, and 30 micrograms. The clinical trials showed the 10-microgram dose had the most comparable effect in kids' antibodies to what the 30-microgram dose did for teens and adults.

Barricade declared in Harper Woods

Harper Woods police established a perimeter around a home on Lochmoor Street near I-94 after a man discharged a long gun inside a home after an argument with family members.

According to the family, they left the house after a 57-year-old male inside the home got in a verbal argument with them before it escalated. He eventually fired a shot from a gun. Officers received a report around 2:30 a.m. Thursday morning. 

Upon responding, officers were speaking with family when the male walked out onto the front porch. He then ran back into his house when police attempted to talk to him about the incident. The doors were then locked and the windows covered.

Police have since made multiple attempts to get in touch with the man before declaring a barricade after failing. Members of the Eastern Wayne County Special Response Team are at the scene. Crisis negotiators are working to establish communication with the man. No injuries have been reported. Harper Woods police are asking people nearby to shelter in place in their basements.

Michigan insurance association votes to refund drivers after $5B surplus

All insured Michigan drivers will be getting refunds due to a $5 billion surplus in a fund that reimburses insurers' medical and other costs for people seriously injured in crashes. The Michigan Catastrophic Fund Association’s board said Wednesday that it voted unanimously to support issuing checks. The move came two days after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called for refunds.

"Details on the specific refund amount per vehicle, along with a proposed timeline and logistics, will be announced in the next several weeks," the board, comprised almost entirely of insurance companies, said in a statement. "The goal is to issue the largest possible refunds to consumers while maintaining sufficient funds to ensure high-quality care to those who have been catastrophically injured."

Under the 2019 law, the state insurance director must hire an independent actuary starting next July and every third year after to audit the MCCA, a state-created nonprofit that reimburses car insurers for personal injury protection medical claims surpassing $600,000. If the review — due by September — shows the MCCA’s assets exceed 120% of its liabilities, the difference must be refunded.

Under the Democratic governor’s proposal, the entire $5 billion surplus would be returned — $675 per car. MCCA Executive Director Kevin Clinton said this week that having no surplus would be too risky, saying the law could require an estimated $100 per-vehicle refund. Whitmer called the pending refunds "great news."

--Courtesy of the Associated Press

Fiance of Detroit mother of 3 charged in her murder

Serena Rayford and Raven Coleman were lifelong friends from the moment she spent the weekend at her house. "Then I never left. I was there for every weekend since," said Rayford. Their tight bond makes Coleman's murder more difficult. Coleman was a mother of three little girls. And the alleged shooter is her fiance.

"That’s probably why she was calling me," Rayford said. "She needed me and I wish I could have answered the phone because she would have been here right now."

Detroit police pulled up to Coleman's home after getting a call about a domestic dispute on Oct. 30. When they arrived to the house on Wayburn Street on Detroit's east side, they found Coleman lying in the driveway with a gunshot to her chest. Tereyl Coleman, her fiance, was arrested and has since been charged with murder.

"Not only did kids lose their mother, but she was a daughter, a cousin, a friend," Rayford said. Tereyl Coleman was arraigned today with second-degree murder and felony firearm. He’ll be back in court later this month.

Massive illegal grow operation was a ticking timebomb

There was a marijuana grow operation inside a Roseville building which has since been boarded up. The city has yet to issue a single license for those businesses - so it was illegal - and the way it was set up made it a ticking time bomb.

Neighbors always suspected something was off there and their suspicions were confirmed Tuesday. "There would be five, six people coming out of there, garbage bags full of stuff, you don’t know what it is," said Aaron Steinhebel, who lives nearby. "Now we do." Roseville police are investigating the illegal marijuana grow operation inside the building at Parkway and Eastland —  they got wind of the pot production after first responders showed up there to put out a fire Tuesday night.

"Once the officers got inside with the fire department, they encountered several hundred plants, a lot of usable marijuana packaged, all illegal, waxes, several plants, no licenses," said Deputy Police Chief Mitch Berlin. Berlin says on top of the large amounts of pot found inside, the tenant here had an illegal DTE hook up, scores of extension cords powering the operation and a lot of butane—a highly flammable chemical used to process marijuana.

"One hundred percent illegal. very dangerous," Berlin said. "They didn’t pull permits for the electrical, so it posed a significant threat to the firefighters, the residents, the police officers. And with the electrical and the water and the butane, it could’ve been chaos." Restoration crews are boarding up the building. Police say it appears the building owner was unaware a tenant was running an illegal grow operation. One person is in custody, but the investigation is far from over.

What else we're watching

1. Police say a Grand Rapids man set up his phone to record the fatal shooting of a security guard who was told to remove him from his room. The gunman then went to his mom's home and shot himself. 
2. Want to know what Michigan is in for this winter? FOX 2's Derek Kevra looked over records and has a good idea about the timing and severity of our next few months. 
3. Officials anticipate upwards of $11 million in revenue after the Detroit City Council voted to move the Grand Prix back downtown after spending a couple of decades on Belle Isle.
4. The broken water main in Oakland County that flooded homes and prompted precautionary boil advisories is expected to be fixed by the weekend.
5. Detroit police are holding a press conference Thursday to announce arrests were made in an investigation over illegal dumpings in Detroit. The suspects were caught on video. 

Live on FOX 2

Daily Forecast

It's going to be another cold one Thursday, but that should about wrap up this week's cool bout before temperatures turn upward as pressure shifts in Southeast Michigan. Temperatures could get as high as 60 by next Monday. 

Daylight saving time ends Sunday, and many Americans ticked off over back-and-forth

Here we go again: Time to reset those clocks.

Daylight saving time will end at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 7. At that moment, clocks will have to "fall back" one hour to 1 a.m.

But how did we get here?

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, daylight saving time, or DST, started in the U.S. in 1918 as a way to create more sunlit hours when the weather is the warmest.

During the long days of summer, the sun rose in some Northern regions between 4 and 5 a.m., when most non-farmers were asleep. Sunset happened before 8 p.m. and people turned on lights. By moving the clocks ahead an hour, backers believed the country could divert a bit of coal-fired electricity to the military instead of using it for an hour of home power. It was again adopted in World War II.

After each war, Congress rescinded the national laws, but many people liked the extra hour of sunshine at the end of summer days, so some states and even cities observed daylight saving time while others kept standard time year-round. That meant driving relatively short distances could result in a time change or three.