COVID-19 updates in Illinois: here’s what’s happening on Wednesday

Illinois administered 82,449 doses of coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday, public health officials reported on Wednesday, reaching a total of 2,900,341 across the state.

The number of Illinois residents who were fully vaccinated – receiving the two required vaccines – reached 906,490, or 7.11% of the total population.

Governor JB Pritzker announced that the state will open mass vaccination sites in Des Plaines and Quincy on Thursday. Sites are expected to administer 4,000 combined doses per day when they are at full capacity.

In addition, Chicago may be receiving another mass vaccination site. Chicago Cubs and Advocate Aurora Health said on Tuesday that they are partnering on a plan to supply COVID-19 vaccines at Wrigley Field.

Advocate and the Chicago Cubs confirmed that they were working to bring another mass inoculation center to the stadium in Wrigleyville to the country’s third largest city, while hundreds of thousands of residents still await their first dose under current eligibility requirements.

Meanwhile, residents age 65 and older can start making appointments on Thursday for injections at the United Center, the city’s first mass vaccination site, capable of inoculating up to 6,000 people a day. The website will open next week.

Officials also said Illinois should receive more than 100,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s recently approved vaccine this week. State officials said more than 90% of its supply of 83,000 doses will be distributed to mass vaccination sites. The city of Chicago, which has its own stock of vaccines, is receiving 22,300 doses.

Illinois public health officials on Wednesday reported 2,104 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 44 additional deaths. This raises the state total to 1,191,520 cases and 20,626 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Here’s what’s happening on Wednesday with COVID-19 in the Chicago and Illinois area:

Filmmakers, TV networks and commercial ad teams spent much less money and hired about half the people in Illinois last year compared to 2019, thanks to a month of production shutdown because of the coronavirus, but officials said on Wednesday who are seeing the return of the local film industry to pre-pandemic production levels.

“2021 looks like it’s going to be a very strong year,” said Illinois Film Office director Peter Hawley at a virtual news conference. “We are on the same level as we were in our record year of 2019. We are almost exactly where we were in (in) 2020 – which was going to be a gangbuster year for us – right now before the pandemic. We also started to see jobs coming back in a very significant way. “

According to Chicago public health commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady, doses of the vaccine are not being wasted. During a March 2 press conference, she said that this is the question she receives most often.

After the Pfizer vaccine is thawed for use, Arwady said, the six doses in the vial should be administered within five days. For the 10 doses of Moderna vaccine in a bottle, it is 30 days. She said there was a lot of planning behind the scenes to ensure that all vaccines were used – from waiting lists to returning missed appointments at zocdoc.com/vaccine to vaccinating workers and volunteers at Chicago city vaccination sites later in the day .

“I want people to hear that there is no wasted vaccine,” she said. “At the city level, when we are distributing the vaccine, we will distribute the vaccine that has one day of use to places that we know will use everything at the beginning of the day. The way we distribute the vaccine in Chicago and the way people remove the vaccine from freezers only once a week, we provide vaccines where people can say, ‘Here are how many appointments I have for this week.’ And they have to show that they are using 85% or more of their commitments each week. “

This is just one of the questions that readers of COVID-19 sent us and that we ask health and science experts. See the full Q&A on here. Do you have your own pandemic question? Send to Tribune here. Get the latest Chicago COVID-19 information and updates from the Chicago Tribune reporters and editors on our COVID-19 Facebook page.

Transport workers ranging from train operators to hitchhikers will be able to obtain COVID-19 vaccines at new distribution locations at O’Hare International Airport, with some airline employees being able to do the injection starting on Thursday.

A vaccination facility at the Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport Hotel open to all transit workers will be able to administer 2,500 vaccines a week, said Chicago Aviation Department spokesman Matt McGrath. To increase capacity, O’Hare’s largest airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines, will maintain separate airport vaccination locations for their employees and contractors.

All O’Hare centers will administer doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine obtained from the Chicago Department of Public Health.

On the O’Hare Hilton website, Federal Emergency Management Agency staff will begin vaccinating first responders and security officials on Friday, before expanding access on Monday. All O’Hare and Midway Airport employees, including those who do not work for airlines, will be eligible, as will employees of Metra, CTA and Pace, taxi drivers and ride drivers who live or work in Chicago.

Two Memorial Health System pharmacists were fired after one of them brought COVID-19 vaccines to their family members and mixed doses inappropriately at the system’s Decatur hospital in December, according to newly released emails from the Illinois Department of Public Health.

A pharmacist “took the doses home at the end of the day and administered them to her family,” according to an e-mail sent to federal officials on January 20 by Heidi Clark, head of the Infectious Diseases Division of the department of health at the state. The pharmacist also “added doses in Pfizer vials to extract more vaccine in addition to six doses,” at Decatur Memorial Hospital, according to the e-mail.

Angie Muhs, a spokesman for the Memorial Health System, confirmed in an email that one of the pharmacists had deviated two doses. The pharmacist’s family members were not eligible for vaccines at that time, she said.

She refused to answer a question about the other pharmacist’s involvement in the incidents.

Illinois administered 82,449 doses of coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday, public health officials reported on Wednesday, reaching a total of 2,900,341 across the state.

The number of Illinois residents who were fully vaccinated – receiving the two required vaccines – reached 906,490, or 7.11% of the total population.

In the past seven days, the state’s average daily vaccination rate was 84,202.

Illinois health officials announced on Wednesday 2,104 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 44 additional deaths, bringing the total number of known infections in Illinois to 1,191,520 and the number of deaths across the state to 20,626 since the beginning of the pandemic.

The authorities also reported 80,854 new tests in the past 24 hours. The positivity rate of the test across the state for seven days was 2.9% for the period ended on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden and the Democrats agreed on Wednesday to tighten the maximum income limits that people could qualify for stimulus checks, said a Democratic official, an important concession to moderates as party leaders prepared to approve their $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill by the Senate.

The COVID-19 relief measure that Senate Democrats planned to unveil will also maintain the weekly $ 400 emergency unemployment benefits that were included in a version of the legislation passed by the House, the official said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal Democratic conversations.

The changes came with Republicans, who can unanimously oppose the legislation, attacking the bill as an overpriced Democratic wish list that oozes aid to many who really don’t need it.

In a 50-50 Senate where Democrats must remain united, party moderates have been pushing to redirect spending on the bill more toward those who are likely to be affected by the resulting pandemic and economic slowdown.

This pandemic affected everything, so it is not surprising that it also interrupted our sleep.

We are concerned about everyone in our lives, we are drinking too much alcohol and coffee and, even when we are in bed, we often do not have good quality sleep.

These are just some of the reasons why psychologist Michael Breus notes that it makes perfect sense that people are experiencing sleep problems. Studies have revealed insomnia and other sleep problems during the pandemic.

“We are simply not able to cope with this level of stress and, of course, it is showing up in sleep,” said Breus.

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