News Photo by Julie Riddle At the Alpena Public Safety Facility on Tuesday, paramedic/firefighter Adrienne Thompson demonstrates the personal protective equipment paramedics use when attending to someone with suspected COVID-19. Vaccinated health care workers are less likely to transmit a virus or miss work, according to Alpena Fire Chief Bill Forbush.

ALPENA — Roughly two-thirds of local doctors, nurses, paramedics, nursing home workers, teachers, and other employees who care for some of Northeast Michigan’s vulnerable people, have chosen vaccination against COVID-19, data shows.

Most Alpena paramedics and about two-thirds of hospital workers have received at least one shot of the vaccine, local health leaders report. At local long-term care facilities, fewer workers have opted for vaccination, federal data shows.

Check out the interactive graphic below showing the share of Northeast Michigan’s population 16 and older who have received all the necessary doses of the coronavirus vaccine. Story continues below graphic.

Two weeks after President Joe Biden mandated vaccinations for all nursing home workers — effective as soon as this month, according to the Associated Press — local nursing homes report that between 44% and 85% of employees have received full COVID-19 vaccinations as of Aug. 15, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The government reports 58% of MediLodge of Alpena employees and 51% of MediLodge of Green View employees as fully vaccinated.

As of mid-August, 94% and 85%, respectively, residents at the Alpena facilities have received a complete dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Nearly 200 long-term care facility employees have tested positive for COVID-19 in Northeast Michigan. Three of those have died, according to state data.

Among long-term care facilities for which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports data, MediLodge of Hillman employees reported vaccinations at the lowest rate in Northeast Michigan, at 44% of employees vaccinated. Jamieson Nursing Home, in Harrisville, reports the highest employee vaccination rate, at 85% of employees vaccinated.

The company that owns MediLodge long-term care homes will not answer questions about employee vaccination rates, according to Bill Gray, media director for MediLodge.

Nursing home employee vaccinations will be mandated in the form of a forthcoming regulation to be issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to the Associated Press. Facilities not complying with the mandate will cease to receive federal funding.

At MidMichigan Medical Center-Alpena, 67% of all staff have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Officials at the hospital were unavailable for comment.

Some Michigan health care systems require the COVID-19 vaccine for staff. A spokesperson for the Alpena hospital said in early August that the hospital does not plan to mandate employee vaccinations.

Alpena Public Schools Superintendent David Rabbideau said last month that at least half of school district employees received vaccinations when the state expanded the list of those who could receive the shots to include teachers in early 2021.

More teachers have probably received vaccinations since then, Rabbideau said. The school district does not mandate vaccinations for its staff nor ask their vaccination status, but Rabbideau said he feels staff vaccination rates are adequate to keep students safe.

Most Alpena Fire Department paramedics — at least 23 of 27 employees, according to Alpena Fire Chief Bill Forbush — have received vaccinations. Emergency medical responders were among the first to be offered the vaccine, and most paramedics wanted it, Forbush said.

Vaccination among health care workers lessens the chance those workers will transmit the virus to a vulnerable person — a prospect Forbush called “horrible,” — and protects the systems in place to protect public health, he said.

Last week, the Alpena Fire Department provided non-transport paramedic backup in Alcona County when an infected responder there passed the virus to other members of the department. With multiple members of its staff quarantining, the Alcona County agency couldn’t field all its calls without help, according to Forbush.

Vaccination helps paramedics and other health care providers continue to do their job taking care of the vulnerable people who need them, said Forbush, who does not mandate employee vaccination but “strongly, strongly” encourages it.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693 or jriddle@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jriddleX.