As the state’s vaccine supply grows, federal, state and local officials are expected to announce Friday that the United Center’s massive vaccination site will open March 10, multiple sources told ABC 7.
As the Bulls and Blackhawks are still playing games at the United Center, the arena itself will not be used. Instead, the parking lots are used for drive-through and boarding vaccinations.
FEMA and the United States Department of Defense will take the lead in running the site, with a particular focus on vaccinating minority groups who are relatively slow to get doses.
Everywhere, 5,000 to 7,000 shots can be given daily, which is important when you consider that the city of Chicago currently receives about 8,300 doses per day.
“What you’re looking at here is essentially increasing the vaccination coverage for the city by about 50 to 70 percent, which is very, very significant.” said Prof. Hani Mahmassani, Director, Northwestern Univ. Transport center.
However, Mahmassani said that if the goal is to reach more people in more areas of the city, a large central location may not be the best use of resources.
“Rather than having one facility that vaccinates 7,000 people, I think it would be more effective to have seven facilities that each vaccinate 1,000 people a day,” Mahmassani said.
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Crews cleared the parking lot snow on Thursday evening in preparation for the arrival of heavy equipment.
“They are ready, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to get people in and out and get their vaccines,” 27th Ward Ald. Walter Burnett said. “You have a lot of 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.”
Gov. JB Pritzker’s office said in a statement Thursday, “Gov. Pritzker believes that the Biden government’s efforts to launch high-capacity vaccination sites across the country are essential for equality, and he appreciates the robust partnership with the president. and his team. Our partners in Cook County and in the City of Chicago are also essential to our collective success, especially as we work together to ensure that we are ready to use the increasing supply of vaccines in the most equitable way. ”
More details on the United Center site are expected to be released Friday.
The United Center site is one of several federally-led mass vaccination sites planned across the country. There are already others in California, New York and Texas.
Earlier this month, the Chicago Public Health Commissioner said the city had completed planning and done walk-throughs at the United Center, as well as Wrigley Field and McCormick Place. But so far, there’s no word on whether any oversized locations in Chicago will be used.
More details about the site, including how people can schedule appointments, are expected when the formal announcement is made Friday morning.
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Illinois announced more than 130,000 vaccine doses were administered Wednesday, the largest one-day increase reported so far and a 36% increase from the previous record of 95,375 reported on Feb. 12.
The state reported that 109,220 doses were delivered to suppliers in Illinois on Wednesday. Although Tuesday’s record of 276,440 fell, it is still higher than what the state has received in recent days.
Still, multiple county’s health departments say it could take weeks before they are able to expand vaccine eligibility to people under age 65 with underlying conditions, despite state assurances that supply will increase significantly soon.
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A long line stretched outside Northlake’s West Leyden High School Thursday, where 2,000 people received their first vaccination. There are still 500 on the waiting list. Jemma Cabral, 41, was one of the lucky ones. She got hers at 9:15 am
“I’ve had cancer twice,” Cabral said. “I’ve had a stem cell transplant, so I mean, even though it’s been years, I still get sick easily. So it was important for me to get vaccinated.”
Under Illinois rules, Cabral is part of Phase 1B plus, which now includes anyone over the age of 16 with a pre-existing condition. Thursday was the first day people like her could be vaccinated. Except that vaccines are still so scarce that no public health department in the area is expanding eligibility.
“It’s not just Chicago, it’s Cook, and DuPage and Will and Evanston,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago Public Health Dept. “We’re not ready to move on. If we open it up, we’d make people happy for five minutes and then frustrate them because they couldn’t actually get appointments.”
Cabral got her appointment because the clinic in West Leyden is run by Albertson’s. Participating grocery stores and pharmacies receive their vaccines directly from the federal government and can choose to assign them to anyone who applies under state rules.
“I was a little concerned when I went to give my date of birth pending the message: not eligible. But actually no, it was pretty quick and easy to fill in,” Cabral said.
Governor JB Pritzker is encouraging public health departments to qualify as soon as possible, saying the state will receive 100,000 doses per day by mid-March. That is almost twice as much as it is now.
In Chicago, where public health officials say they are still nearly half a million doses short to cover phases 1A and 1B, no such expansion is expected to occur until at least the end of March.
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Illinois Department of Public Health reported 1,884 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 32 deaths on Thursday.
IDPH reported a total of 1,181,226 COVID-19 cases, including 20,406 deaths.
As of Wednesday night, 1,463 patients in Illinois were reported hospitalized with COVID-19. Of these, 334 patients were in the ICU and 168 patients used COVID-19 breathing equipment.
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In the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 91,292 samples tested for a total of 17,895,829 since the start of the pandemic.
The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from February 18-24 is 2.7%.
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A total of 2,693,345 doses of vaccine have been delivered to healthcare providers in Illinois, including Chicago, with an additional 445,200 doses allocated to federal government partners for long-term care facilities, bringing the total number of doses delivered in Illinois to 3,138,545.
The IDPH said vaccine distribution numbers are reported in real time and vaccine delivery lags by as much as 72 hours.
IDPH reports that a total of 2,440,950 vaccine doses have been administered, including 295,909 in long-term facilities. The seven-day moving average of vaccines administered is 66,274.
The deaths reported Wednesday include:
-Adams County: 1 woman in her 80’s
-Christian County: 1 woman in her 80’s
-Cook County: 1 man 20s, 1 man 50s, 2 men 60s, 4 men 70s, 2 women 80s
-DeKalb County: 1 man in his 60s
-DuPage County: 1 man out of 80
-Jersey County: 1 man from the 1970s
-Kane County: 1 man in the 60’s, 1 man in the 80
-Kankakee County: 1 man out of 80
-Lake County: 1 man 90s
-Logan County: 1 woman in her 80’s
-Madison County: 1 woman in 30, 1 man in 80
-Monroe County: 2 women 80s
-Pike County: 1 man out of 80
-Randolph County: 1 female 50s
-Rock Island County: 1 90s woman
-Whiteside County: 1 man out of 80
-Will County: 1 man in the 60’s, 1 man in the 90
-Winnebago County: 1 man from the 70’s, 1 man from the 80’s
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