DETROIT – The Henry Ford Health System has been a leader in combating the misinformation being spread about COVID vaccines.
During its regular press briefing on Thursday, Henry Ford gave a status update to the numbers being seen in their hospitals as concern for the delta variant becomes more widespread. With vaccination rates in Detroit at only 40%, they also took some time to address vaccine misinformation.
Read: Henry Ford Health System to require COVID vaccinations for all employees
“We are pleased to tell you that our numbers of patients admitted with COVID continue to be stable and low. As of this morning we have a total of 23 patients across our five hospitals,” Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Adnan Munkarah said.
Overall, he noted that the current situation in Michigan is not as serious as in other parts of the country. But that could change.
“We do strongly believe that vaccine is our way out of this pandemic and this crisis that we have been living now for over a year and a half -- with respect to our staff, we are over 72% of our staff now who have been vaccinated,” he said.
Because the vaccine is required for all employees, he expects the number to increase. But some concerns about the vaccine were also discussed by Dr. Dennis Cunningham, Henry Ford’s director of infection control.
“The most common myth is that the vaccine was created too quickly,” he said. “MRNA technology has been used to treat certain cancers for the past 10 years. Emergency Use Approval just allowed the FDA to streamline the regulatory process and increase funding and collaboration.”
Read: Continuous COVID coverage