Chicago will begin giving the coronavirus vaccine to residents 65 and older as early as next week, launching the next phase of the city’s rollout, health officials confirmed Wednesday.
The Chicago Department of Public Health will allow residents over the age of 65 to begin vaccinating next week, “but only with leftover doses unclaimed by health professionals and residents of long-term care facilities,” the department said.
“That would launch the next phase of the vaccination effort,” said CDPH.
While it is not the full Phase 1B initially planned for the city, it comes on the heels of a request from the Trump administration, which this week asked states to vaccinate people 65 and older and those under 65. with underlying health problems leaving them at high risk.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is expected to announce this week when Illinois enters Phase 1B of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, although some areas may already be allowed to do so.
I expect to make a formal announcement in Illinois later this week
will move to Phase 1B statewide, “Pritzker said during his coronavirus update Monday.” Of course, anyone in Stage 1A who has chosen not to get vaccinated can always sign up during a subsequent round – this will pass as we go along, we won’t leave any vaccine on the shelves. ”
On Monday, 587,900 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been delivered to Illinois, 478,175 doses had been shipped to public and private healthcare providers outside of Chicago, and 109,725 doses had gone to providers in Chicago.
Illinois as a whole had administered approximately 334,939 vaccine doses as of Sunday evening.
“We are making significant progress in Phase 1A and I appreciate the hard work of health care providers across the state to get through this phase as quickly as possible,” said Pritzker. In some communities, they have even been able to substantially complete Phase 1A. IDPH allows any local health department in that position to move into the early stages of Phase 1B, as we want to ensure that every available vaccine is delivered quickly to the priority groups we have drawn up. ”
Phase 1B will focus on residents 65 and older and “frontline essential workers”, including first responders, educators such as teachers and support staff, childcare workers, grocery store employees, postmen and more.
The Illinois age requirement is 10 years lower than the initial recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, “to reduce COVID-19 mortality and limit community spread in Black and Brown communities,” the governor said.
Phase 1B will encompass approximately 3.2 million Illinois residents, according to the state.
Chicago health officials had said they expected Phase 1B to begin in the city in February or March.
“A lot depends on how quickly the vaccine gets to us,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health. “We now get about 32,000 doses of first doses of vaccine per week. Think how many people there are over 65 – 370,000 – how many key workers – hundreds of thousands, 150,000, just in education – there will be some patience here. But I would expect that we probably going to start, you know, February to March kind of, and then we’ll continue to vaccinate, you know, for the next few months. ‘