It’s not just Republicans complaining about Michigan’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout so far.

Democratic leaders of some of Michigan’s population centers – Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter and Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel – have publicly railed against the speed of the distribution so far.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, for her part, announced she’s now asked the feds for permission to directly purchase up to 100,000 doses. She said her letter to the feds asking for more vaccines to be released hasn’t seen a response.

“We remain ready to accelerate distribution to get doses into arms,” Whitmer said she wrote in the letter. “Toward that end, I am writing to request permission for the state of Michigan to make a one-time purchase of up to 100,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine directly from Pfizer to be distributed and administered consistent with CDC guidelines and the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine.”

Coulter, on WJR with Paul W. Smith, said from what he’s read, “if we kept up at this pace” of the vaccination rollout, “it would take 10 years to get everyone vaccinated . . . this cannot continue.”

The 10-year projection was made by NBC News back in late December and was related to the complete Operation Warp Speed plan to get Americans vaccinated, based on the program’s initial goals to get 80 percent of the 330 million Americans vaccinated by late June.

As of Jan. 8, The New York Times reported 6.7 million Americans have received at least one of the two doses, falling below the federal goal of 20 million getting their first shots by the end of December.

Coulter said, “all the counties in Michigan need more vaccines” and that “it’s not clear where the problem is.” He said, “we have raised the expectation that everybody is going to be able to get in line, and frankly we just don’t have enough access.”

Coulter said Oakland County vaccinate 17,000 a week just at the county’s drive-throughs.

“Our plan is ready,” he said.

What’s been “frustrating,” Coulter said, is that when locals ask what’s taking so long, “there’s not a lot of great answers” at either the state or federal levels.

As for Hackel, he posted a video early this month where he opened up one of his county’s vaccine storage freezers to show they had no vaccines to give to anyone at that point.

He said the state’s recent expansion of who can get the vaccine has bumped the population that could be inoculated right now to roughly 250,000 to 300,000 people.

“The governor over-promised something that health departments around the state cannot deliver,” Hackel said in the video posted Jan. 8, adding that, “opening it up to that many people and not having the vaccines available was a challenge.”

Hackel noted that the county’s phone lines are filling up with people wanting to get the vaccine, but the problem is the county doesn’t have enough doses. He said Macomb County has the capacity to dole out 50,000 vaccinations per week, but the county is being given 1,000 doses a week.

Detroit also is getting barraged with calls from people wanting to get a vaccine appointment, according to the city’s chief operating officer Hakim Berry, who said in a statement the call center has received more than 100,000 calls on a recent day.

“Those who predicted that Detroiters would not be interested in receiving the vaccine were clearly incorrect,” Berry said.

The city is beefing up its call center staff and expanding call center hours as a result.

Whitmer and her administration announced last week that the newest groups who could get vaccines include anyone over age 65, as well as certain essential workers like teachers.

But Hackel said, “When we heard the announcement, we were frustrated because we knew exactly what was going to happen – people were going to blame local health departments for not delivering.”

He called for putting pressure on Whitmer and lawmakers for more vaccines. Hackel said Whitmer’s message “set us in a terrible situation where people expect something that . . . can’t be delivered.”

Wayne County’s Chief Health Strategist, Dr. Mouhanad Hammami, said in a press release issued today that demand for the vaccine is outpacing the state’s ability to supply it to regional health departments and that hospitals and health systems have the “most reliable supply of vaccine” right now.

The press release from Wayne County said county residents 65 years and older can now receive the vaccines at area health systems “as more of the vaccine becomes available,” and that they should contact hospitals for vaccine scheduling.

One of those health systems, Beaumont Health, said in a press release it’s ready to open more vaccination clinics “as quickly as possible as more vaccine becomes available.”

Beaumont Health Chief Operating Officer Carolyn Wilson said she’s “proud of the highly efficient clinic we launched at our Beaumont Service Center. We’re ready to open two more, but we currently don’t have enough vaccine to do that yet.”

Right now, Beaumont can vaccinate about 3,200 people each day. But with the launch of those two clinics, Beaumont Health CEO John Fox said the hospital’s capacity would be at 50,000 a week, but that it “all depends upon how much vaccine we receive.”

This story courtesy of MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.