Michigan is falling behind

Happy Friday. Today's pandemic news includes Henry Ford employees withdrawing their motion against the hospital, new stats on Michigan's vaccination rate compared to other states and a warning from health officials as Michigan hospitals begin to fill. 

Henry Ford employees who initially filed a suit against the hospital's vaccine mandate filed a motion to dismiss today. They withdrew their motion asking for a temporary restraining order and filed a separate notice dismissing the case. The reason for pulling the lawsuit is not yet known.

A lawyer for the 51 employees who filed the suit declined comment. U.S. District Judge Terrence Berg was set to hear arguments in the case at 3 p.m. Friday, but the hearing has been cancelled. 

The lawsuit filed Monday in Detroit argued that employees would be subjecting themselves to "potential harm and death" by getting the vaccine and cited death and injury data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System to support their reluctance to get the vaccine.

Michigan is falling behind other states in vaccination rates; officials fear another surge.

Michigan's effort to vaccinate as many residents as possible against COVID-19 has been outpaced by the vast majority of other states in the past two months, a sign of the resistance health officials are facing as they warn of a fourth surge of the virus.

Since July 1, only two states have reported smaller percentage-point increases in the portion of their residents with at least one dose of vaccine, according to data tracked by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This comes as hospital leaders again urged Michiganians to get their vaccines, saying on Thursday that their facilities have been experiencing staffing shortages and are nearing capacity because of a combination of increasing coronavirus cases and pent-up demand for other health care services.

Michigan hospitals officially declared yesterday that they are operating 'at near capacity levels'.

Michigan hospital leaders urged residents on Thursday to get vaccinated against COVID-19 before the situation in the state becomes "dire" and to help the health care system avoid reaching a "tipping point."

The pressing problem facing hospitals is not the availability of beds but staffing, said Brian Peters, CEO of the Michigan Health and Hospital Association. He described hospital staffing as "stressed to a level that we have not seen previously,"

"You can have all of the beds in the world," Peters said. "If you don't have an adequate number of nurses, physicians, other health care providers to staff those beds, that's where we run into to a problem.

Michigan added 6,095 COVID cases and 59 deaths today including totals from Thursday. This brings latest figures to 970,412 cases and 20,506 deaths since March 2020.