Grosse Pointe News

Sean Cotton, Owner • Anne Gryzenia, Publisher • Jody McVeigh, Editor In Chief • Meg Leonard, Senior Editor

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Last in lineFree Access


Senior citizens in the Grosse Pointes are last among residents of eastside suburbs being offered vaccinations through Wayne County. Grosse Pointe Shores is at the tail end.

“We’ve always been a donor community to Wayne County,” said Shores Mayor Ted Kedzierski. “I think they see us as people having substantial resources so, therefore, they don’t feel a need to provide us with as much as other communities.”

True, at least in this case, as shown by the Pointes’ stacked nearly head-to-toe at the bottom of the Social Vulnerability Index, compiled from census data.

“This index is used all across the county for health studies,” said Tim Killeen, Wayne County commissioner representing the Grosse Pointes, Harper Woods and part of eastside Detroit. “It looks at things like health data. In general, people 75 years old living in Detroit have poorer health than someone 75 living in the Grosse Pointes.”

The index’s 15 criteria are sorted into four categories: socioeconomic status, family composition and disability, minority status and language minority and, lastly, housing type and transportation.

Within those fields are factored poverty rates, age distributions, housing density, transportation access and more.

The higher the index, the worse off the city. In Wayne County, Ecorse is at the top, meaning worst ratingwise, at .9220. The Shores is best at .0402. No Pointe rates above .1231 (the Woods). Harper Woods is .6571.

“We have three health systems within close proximity of the Grosse Pointes,” said Farms Manager Shane Reeside. “Our vaccination rate may be higher due to our proximity to three major hospitals.”

To compartmentalize vaccine distribution to 182,443 senior citizens among the county’s nearly 1,100,000 residents, excluding Detroit, which has its own health department and COVID program, the county is sectioned into four regions of roughly equal senior populations.

“In each region – not across the whole county – you rank cities from the highest to lowest index,” Killeen said. “Whoever has the highest index in that region goes first for vaccinations. The idea is to get to the most vulnerable first. Everybody wants to be first in line. But this is a plan to get to the 65-plus crowd that has great vulnerability to the virus.”

Of 96,375 doses the county received for distribution sans Detroit, 44,625 doses went to hospitals and 51,750 were marked for residents. The later figure represents nearly 5 percent of Wayne’s non-Detroit population. Figures come from the county website’s COVID-19 vaccine dashboard.

The Pointes have a combined 65-and-older population of 8,857, according to county data.

Other options

Seniors can get vaccinated through a health system, Rite Aid and Meijer stores or wait for their municipality’s invitation for treatment when supplied by the county health department.

“I registered a month ago with Wayne County as an essential worker,” said the Shores’ Kedzierski. “They told me they’d contact me in five to eight days. I went on Beaumont’s site. I registered at Henry Ford (Health System) and Meijer. Quickly, Beaumont called. I got my first vaccination at Beaumont Oakwood. Then Meijer called. I still haven’t heard back from Wayne County.”

His sister lives in Macomb County.

“She went to Macomb Community College and has both of her shots,” Kedzierski said.

Ditto with at least a couple people Kedzierski knows living on Fairlake Lane in the small section of Shores contained by Macomb County.

“They had shots care of Macomb Community Health Department,” he said.

Killeen said part Wayne’s delay is a vaccine shortage.

“The supply chain is as slow as molasses,” he said. “It’s not going to be a smooth process until we get more vaccines.”