The expansion comes as the Illinois Department of Public Health on Wednesday reported 2,022 newly confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 44 deaths.
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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 state assurances that supply will increase significantly soon.
Government JB Pritzker said federal deliveries to Illinois would increase to 100,000 daily doses by mid-March – nearly twice as much as the state currently manages.
“I encourage all our local health departments, especially those not yet on track for enlargement, to move as quickly as possible to increase our reach in light of the increasing federal supply,” Pritzker said.
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But in Lake County, less than a third of people 65 and older were vaccinated.
The province adheres to CDC guidelines which say that 60 to 70 percent of the people in a current phase should be vaccinated before expansion, unless supply exceeds demand.
“We’ve seeing a big demand, and I can tell you that I receive emails every day from people 65 and older entering their vaccination,” said Mark Pfister, executive director of the Lake County Health Dept.
In fact, on the eve of the state’s 1B expansion, not a single department of health in the province has announced when the move will take place.
“Really keep an eye out to see what the situation looks like in the next four to six weeks and then make a decision on how and when to expand to the next group,” said Chris Hoff, DuPage County Health Dept.
In Chicago, it could be the end of March.
“I do not want to create expectations that we simply cannot meet, especially if we still have to focus on our elderly,” said Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
There are still providers, including pharmacies, in our area that are expanding the admission, but they need to receive vaccination directly from the state or federal government, rather than the provinces.
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IDPH reports a total of 1,179,342 COVID-19 cases, including 20,374 deaths.
As of Tuesday night, it was reported that 1,511 patients were in the hospital in Illinois with COVID-19. Of these, 338 patients were in the ICU and 172 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
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Within the past 24 hours, laboratories reported testing 82,976 samples for a total of 17,804,537 since the pandemic began.
The preliminary seven-day positive test positivity from February 17-23 is 2.8%.
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A total of 2,584,125 doses of vaccine were delivered to suppliers 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 3,029,325.
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 2,310,929 vaccine doses were administered, including 291,273 at long-term facilities. The running average of vaccines administered over seven days is 58,141.
The deaths reported on Wednesday include:
-Cook County: 1 female 60s, 3 men 60s, 4 women 70s, 3 men 70s, 2 women 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s, 1 male 90s
-DuPage County: 1 man 60s
-Ford County: 1 80-year-old man
-Henderson County: 1 man 60s, 1 woman 70s, 2 woman 80s, 1 80s men, 1 woman 90s
-Johnson County: 1 70-year-old man
-Kane County: 1 female 60s
-Kendall County: 1 female 70s
-Lake County: 1 70’s, 1 80’s
-LaSalle County: 2 women 90s
-Macoupin County: 1 60-year-old man
-McHenry County: 2 men 80s
-Monroe County: 1 female 70s
-Saline County: 1 female 70s
-Stephenson County: 1 80-year-old man, 1 90-year-old woman
-Union County: 2 men 60s
-Will County: 1 female 70s
-Winnebago County: 1 60-year-old man, 1 80-year-old man, 1 90-year-old woman
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