As the state’s vaccine supply increases, federal, state and local officials are expected to announce Friday that the Mass Vaccination Center for the United Center will open on March 10, various sources told ABC 7.
As the Bulls and Blackhawks still play games in the United Center, the arena will not be used. Instead, the parking lots will be used for drive-in and drive-through vaccinations.
FEMA and the U.S. Department of Defense will take the lead in managing the site, focusing in particular on vaccinating minority populations that have been relatively slow to obtain doses.
5,000 to 7,000 shots can be given daily, which is important considering that the city of Chicago currently receives approximately 8,300 doses per day.
“What you’re looking at here is essentially increasing the vaccination rate for the city by about 50 to 70%, which is very, very important.” the prof. Hani Mahmassani, director of Northwestern University, said. Transportation Center.
However, Mahmassani said if the goal is to reach more people in more parts of the city, a great central location may not be the best use of resources.
“Instead of having one facility that vaccinates 7,000 people, I think it would be more efficient to have seven facilities that each vaccinate 1,000 people a day,” Mahmassani said.
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Crews cleared the parking lot Thursday night in preparation for the arrival of heavy equipment.
“They’re ready, and they’re ready to do whatever it takes to get people in and out and get their vaccines,” said 27th Ward Ald. Walter Burnett said. “You have very good transport with the highway, the trains. You have two train systems, the Green Line and the Blue Line, buses. You also have a community that is used to having traffic in it.”
The office of Governor JB Pritzker said in a statement on Thursday: “Governor Pritzker believes that the efforts of the Biden administration to start high-capacity vaccination sites across the country are essential for fairness, and he appreciates the strong collaboration with the president and his team.Our partners in Cook County and in the City of Chicago are also essential to our joint success, especially as we work together to ensure we are ready to stockpile the growing vaccine in an equitable manner possible to use. ‘
More details are expected to be announced on the United Center website on Friday.
The United Center website is one of several federal mass vaccination sites planned across the country. There are others already in California, New York and Texas.
Earlier this month, Chicago’s public health commissioner said the city had completed the planning and made walkthroughs at the United Center, as well as Wrigley Field and McCormick Place. But so far there is no word on whether additional large venues will be used in Chicago.
More information about the site, including how people can schedule appointments, is expected when the formal announcement is made Friday morning.
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Illinois announced that more than 130,000 vaccine doses had been administered on Wednesday, the largest one-day increase reported to date and a 36% increase over the previous record of 95,375 reported on February 12th.
The state reported that 109,220 doses were delivered Wednesday to suppliers in Illinois. That is lower than Tuesday’s record of 276,440, but it is still higher than what the state has received in recent days.
Yet several health departments in the province say it could take weeks before they are able to take the vaccine into consideration for people under 65 with underlying conditions, despite the state assuring that supply will increase significantly soon.
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A long line stretched outside Northlake’s West Leyden High School on Thursday, where 2,000 people received their first vaccine shot. There are still 500 on the waiting list. Jemma Cabral, 41, was among the lucky ones. She met her at 09:15 am
“I’m a two-time cancer survivor,” Cabral said. “I had a stem cell transplant, so I mean, even if it was years ago, I still get sick easily. So it was important for me to be vaccinated.”
According to Illinois rules, Cabral is part of Phase 1B plus, which now includes anyone over 16 with an existing condition. Thursday was the first day that people like her could be vaccinated. Apart from the fact that vaccines are still so scarce, there is not a single public health department in the area that is yet increasing the qualification.
“It’s not just Chicago, it’s Cook, and DuPage and Will and Evanston,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago Department of Public Health, said. “We are not at a point where we can continue. If we open it, we will make people happy for five minutes and then frustrate them because they can not actually get appointments.”
Cabral got her appointment because the West Leyden Clinic is run by Albertson’s. Participating grocery stores and pharmacies receive their vaccines directly from the federal government and can choose to award them to anyone applying under state rules.
“I was a little worried when I went to wait for my date of birth to say it was out of the question. But actually, it was pretty smooth and easy to fill out,” Cabral said.
Governor JB Pritzker urges public health departments to expand the admission as soon as possible, saying the state will receive 100,000 doses per day by mid-March. That’s almost twice as much, as it is now.
In Chicago, where public health officials say they still need nearly half a million doses to cover Phases 1A and 1B, such an expansion is not expected until at least the end of March.
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The Illinois Department of Public Health on Thursday reported 1,884 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 32 deaths.
IDPH reported a total of 1,181,226 COVID-19 cases, including 20,406 deaths.
As of Wednesday night, it was reported that 1,463 patients in Illinois were in the hospital with COVID-19. Of these, 334 patients were in the ICU and 168 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
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Within the last 24 hours, laboratories have tested 91,292 samples for a total of 17,895,829 since the onset of the pandemic.
The preliminary seven-day positive test positivity from 18 to 24 February is 2.7%.
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A total of 2,693,345 doses of vaccine were delivered to providers in Illinois, including Chicago, with another 445,200 doses allocated to federal government partners for long-term care facilities, bringing the total number delivered in Illinois to 3,138,545.
The IDPH said that the distribution numbers of vaccines are reported in real time and that the vaccine administration is lagging behind by as much as 72 hours.
IDPH reports that a total of 2,440,950 vaccine doses were administered, including 295,909 at long-term facilities. The rolling average of vaccines administered over seven days is 66,274.
The deaths reported on Wednesday include:
-Adams County: 1 female 80s
-Christian County: 1 female 80s
-Cook County: 1 men 20s, 1 50s men, 2 men 60s, 4 men 70s, 2 women80s
-DeKalb County: 1 60-year-old man
-DuPage County: 1 man 80’s
Jersey County: 1 man 70’s
-Kane County: 1 60’s, 1 80’s
-Kankakee County: 1 man 80’s
Lake County: 1 male 90s
-Logan County: 1 female 80s
Madison County: 1 30-year-old woman, 1 80-year-old woman
-Monroe County: 2 women 80s
-Pike County: 1 80-year-old man
-Randolph County: 1 50-year-old woman
-Rock Island County: 1 female 90s
-Whiteside County: 1 80-year-old man
-Will County: 1 man 60s, 1 man 90s
-Winnebago County: 1 70’s, 1 80’s
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