GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — It's been one year since the first COVID vaccines were administered in Michigan. A lot has changed since then. From mass clinics like the DeVos Place where thousands of vaccines were administered daily, to availability at your doctors office.
Dr. Marc McClelland a critical care and pulmonology physician at Spectrum Health and was one of the first in the state to receive a vaccine, "It's hard to believe it's been a year since the first vaccine. Certainly we've it's been a learning curve for all of us. When when they asked me if I, you know, become the first to be vaccinated, I said, without question, yes, after everything that we had been through."
Dr. McClelland says he didn't think the pandemic would still be surging a year ago, "I would have thought we'd be in a little bit better spot than we are probably all of us thought that I am, I am still hopeful and totally optimistic that one year from now we can be in a better spot. Vaccines are clearly the biggest part of the answer. It's really quite incredible that after such a short period of time, we were able to come up with such an effective and amazing and very, very safe vaccine. "
The COVID pandemic is stretching health systems to a level they've never seen and there's no real end in sight at the moment. Dr. McClelland wants people to understand the long term effects COVID has on patients, "And I think that's important for people to understand it's causing lung damage that often is requiring people to remain on oxygen, even after they leave the hospital. It's causing a lot of disability. It's causing other problems even beyond the lungs, we've all heard of COVID brain people who have long term neurologic sequelae, I've seen a lot of patients who aren't able to go back to work afterwards, for example, and have a lot of disability. We've seen it cause kidney problems. And and just a host of different issues. Oftentimes after people are in the intensive care unit, they're incredibly weak and debilitated. And often need to spend weeks if not months, doing rehab before they can get back to life."
If you need to schedule a vaccine you can go to Vaccinate West Michigan to find a clinic near you.
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