Oakland County has reached the elusive 70 percent vaccination rate against Covid-19, County Executive David Coulter announced today. Seventy percent is the threshold medical experts generally agree constitutes herd immunity against any disease, when enough people are protected that widespread transmission is less likely.
County Executive David Coulter is vaccinated earlier at the Oakland Health Division. (File photo)
Coulter made the announcement via social media and press release Friday:
“We’ve been doing everything possible to get as many COVID-19 vaccination shots into Oakland County arms and today we reached that elusive goal of getting 70 percent of our population of people ages 16 and older vaccinated with at least the first dose,” Coulter said. ...
“But while reaching this vaccination goal is an important moment to acknowledge, we’re not done fighting this pandemic. The Delta variant of the virus is still present in the state and Oakland County and these new mutations of COVID are highly contagious. With 30 percent of our population still unvaccinated, we can’t fully get back to normal.”
The bad news: Now that 70 percent has been reached, a $50 gift card incentive has been suspended, though any resident who received the shot from June 24-July 23 still can apply at OaklandCountyVaccine.com.
Also, because surrounding counties have not reached that threshold (the state average isn63%), and because the county does not have a wall with strict entrance requirements, and because most people in Oakland travel out of it from time to time, it's more a matter of bragging rights than true protection. Good news, not the best news.
