Fact check: Governor Pritzker’s allegation against Illinois leading other major states over coronavirus vaccinations sheds some light

Illinois kicked off February with one of the lowest vaccination rates for COVID-19 in the country, sparking frustration among many about the slow start of the program.

Nearly three weeks later, Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said the state is making progress thanks to the federal government’s increased supply and the efforts of local health departments:

“Consequently, for the month of February, Illinois was the vaccination leader among the ten most populous states in the country,” Pritzker said in a pre-recorded video address, which aired on February 17.

Did Illinois get as far this month as the governor claimed? We found that Pritzker’s statement was supported by one measure measured over a few days, but an otherwise stain-like vaccination record.

Different criteria, mixed results

There are many measures to measure the progress of states in getting their residents vaccinated against COVID-19. Illinois is performing well this month on some benchmarks, but is still low on others.

Illinois began the country’s 43rd month for total doses administered as it was adapted for the population, according to Our World in Data, a University of Oxford-based project that reviewed vaccination statistics from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has. By the time Pritzker’s address was broadcast, the state had improved nationally to 34th – and sixth place if only the ten most populous states were taken into account.

The state also performs better on another measure: the proportion of residents who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. On February 17, Illinois took a narrow lead over the other nine populated states and has held first, second, or third place in the group every day ever since.

However, the measurement goes hand in hand with another: the proportion of people who have been fully vaccinated. Illinois was the last place among the ten largest states – and still ranked nationally on or near the bottom every day. Experts believe that it is difficult to compare states on this criterion, due to differences in state policy on how much vaccine should be earmarked for second doses.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia / Sun-Times File

Given these mixed results, we reached out to the governor’s office to find out what Pritzker was referring to when he said Illinois was the “vaccination leader” among major states this month.

Jordan Abudayyeh, spokesman for Pritzker, said Illinois per capita was the largest population state in vaccinations administered in February – and did so “for the vast majority” of the month.

Experts said it was fair to compare states based on the total doses administered and adjusted for the population. However, they were divided on whether it makes sense to focus on a few weeks in February.

Hemi Tewarson, a senior fellow at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, said the February snapshot could be helpful in showing recent improvement after a sluggish start due to issues outside state control, such as delays with the federal pharmacy partnership program which was created to vaccinate those in nursing homes.

“If they started slowly in December or early January, it’s hard to catch up,” she said.

Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said that while data from month to month is important for measuring a state’s progress internally, it is not as useful to make comparisons because it is not a complete picture of a state’s vaccination of vaccines.

Regardless, according to Pritzker’s metric Illinois, the lead among large states on total doses per capita in February applied only a few days of the month, based on our analysis of CDC figures cataloged by Our World in Data.

In support of Pritzker’s allegation, Abudayyeh sends us a screenshot of a spreadsheet with figures that she says took the governor’s office of the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccination detection. The spreadsheet compares how many doses were administered from 31 January to 11 February per 100,000 inhabitants in the ten most populous states.

Screenshot from Facebook recording.

These numbers could not be verified directly because the CDC’s tracker only provides a current cumulative total on each day.

To check the governor’s figures, we turned again to Our World in Data, which makes the previous days’ CDC scores available for users to download. These numbers correspond to the analysis of the governor.

Day by day, however, Illinois claimed first place three times out of the first 11 days of the month, almost the “vast majority” of February as Pritzker’s spokesman claims. The state’s lead was slim, and by the time the governor’s address was broadcast, Illinois had fallen back to second place behind Florida.

Pritzker’s claim was therefore accurate on February 12, the last day of his office’s analysis. It was not accurate when his speech was first broadcast five days later.

Our verdict

Pritzker said that “Illinois for the month of February was the vaccination leader among the ten most populous states in the country.”

There are many different ways to measure how countries compare when it comes to vaccinating residents against COVID-19. On some, Illinois is high and on others low. Pritzker’s office pointed to one very specific criterion: the total doses administered per capita only during February.

The most important issue with Pritzker’s assertion is that Illinois took the lead on the measure only a few days before the governor’s pre-recorded address – and by the broadcast of second place had already fallen back to second place.

We judge this claim half true.

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HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate, but omits important details or takes things out of context.

The Better Government Association runs PolitiFact Illinois, the local arm of the nationally known, Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking enterprise that testifies to the truth of statements by government leaders and politicians. The BGA fact-checking service has partnered with the Sun-Times on a weekly basis, in print and online. You can find everything the PolitiFact Illinois stories we reported here together.

Sources

“COVID-19 vaccine in Illinois: complaints of slow rollout, confusing process, unequal distribution of doses,” WGN-TV, February 1, 2021

Video: Government Pritzker’s State of the Nation Address and Budget Speech, aired February 17, 2021

State-by-state data on COVID-19 vaccinations, Our World in Data, was consulted on 23 February 2021

Email: Jordan Abudayyeh, Pritzker Spokesman, February 18, 2021

Telephone interview: Hemi Tewarson, senior policy fellow at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, 19 February 2021

Telephone interview and email: Amesh Adalja, Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, February 18, 2021

COVID-19 Vaccination Detection, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Annual Estimates of Residents, U.S. Census Bureau, July 1, 2019