Chicago is set to begin giving coronavirus vaccine to residents 65 and older next week, which begins the next phase of the city’s launch, health officials confirmed on Wednesday.
The Chicago Department of Public Health will allow residents over the age of 65 to start vaccinating next week, “but only with remaining doses not claimed by health workers and long-term care agencies.”
“This will start the next phase of the vaccination effort,” according to CDPH.
While this is not the complete Phase 1B originally planned for the city, it comes on the heels of a request from the Trump administration, which asked states this week to vaccinate people 65 and older and those under 65 with underlying health conditions they set. with high risk.
The Illinois government, JB Pritzker, is expected to announce this week when Illinois will enter Phase 1B of its coronavirus vaccine deployment, although some areas may already do so.
‘I expect to make a formal announcement later this week about when Illinois
Pritzker switched to Phase 1B during his coronavirus update on Monday. ‘Of course, anyone in Phase 1A who prefers not to be vaccinated will always be able to act during any subsequent round – it’s about leaving no vaccine on the shelves as we move forward. ‘
As of Monday, 587,900 doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been delivered in Illinois, 478,175 doses had been sent to public and private healthcare providers outside Chicago, and 109,725 doses had been given to providers in Chicago.
Illinois as a whole administered approximately 334,939 doses of vaccine Sunday night.
“We are making significant progress in Phase 1A and I appreciate the hard work of healthcare providers across the state to move through this phase as quickly as possible,” Pritzker said. “In some communities, they were even able to substantially complete Phase 1A. IDPH allows any local health department to move into that position in the early stages of Phase 1B, because we want to make sure any available vaccine is quickly given to the priority groups we have laid out.”
Phase 1B focuses on residents 65 and older and ‘essential workers’, including first responders, teachers such as teachers and support staff, child care workers, grocery stores, postal service workers and more.
The age requirement in Illinois is ten years lower than the initial recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, “to reduce COVID-19 deaths and limit the spread of communities in black and colored communities,” the governor said.
Phase 1B, according to the state, will include about 3.2 million Illinois residents.
Chicago health officials said they expect Phase 1B to begin in the city in February or March.
“A lot depends on how fast the vaccine comes to us,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Department of Public Health, said in Chicago. “We are currently getting about 32,000 doses of first doses of vaccine per week. You think about how many people there are over 65 – 370,000 – how many essential workers – hundreds of thousands, 150,000, just in education – there will have to be but patient here. But I would expect that we would probably start within the period from February to March, and then we would continue to vaccinate for the next few months. “