While Governor JB Pritzker said he remains optimistic about the increase in supplies of the state’s COVID-19 vaccine in the coming weeks, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County Council President Toni Preckwinkle rejected his plan on Thursday. expand the group of eligible vaccinees later this month.
Doing so would add more than a million people to the free-for-all that takes place across the city and suburbs for the coveted and incredibly scarce doses, creating “an even harder time” for those who still wait in front of the line, from according to Lightfoot and Preckwinkle.
“While we are making progress each day with vaccinating people in [distribution phases] 1A and 1B, we are not currently receiving enough doses to allow us to expand eligibility in these phases, ”said the former political rivals in a rare joint statement.
“We recognize that the governor must make difficult choices and consider the needs across this diverse state, but given the limited supply of vaccine, we must also make difficult choices as leaders of the city and the most populous county in the state,” said the mayor and said the county council president. “We hope to expand eligibility as the supply of vaccines improves.”
And the supply is doing just that, said Pritzker at an Elgin vaccination site, the day after his office announced that all Illinois residents with disabilities or chronic illnesses, including heart disease and diabetes, will be able to apply for vaccines from of February. 25
They will join the approximately 4 million health workers, residents of nursing homes, people aged 65 and over, and select essential workers who are currently authorized to register for a vaccine appointment. At best, about 10% of those eligible in Chicago were covered, according to the city’s Public Health Commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady.
Cook County residents in that expanded group will need to seek appointments outside of the Chicago area.
“We think it’s more towards the end of March, before we get to the point where we could realistically start thinking about opening up this more,” Arwady told a state Senate committee on the vaccine’s launch.
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But Pritzker reiterated his “optimism” that with a third vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson close to FDA approval and with weekly federal government shipments increasing by about 28% in the past month, “it’s a tremendously better situation” for Illinois.
“It is still a massive shortage, there is no doubt, but they are working hard,” said the Democratic governor of the federal government. “They are increasing supplies to the states as quickly as they can.”
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As for Chicago and Cook County diverging from the state’s Phase 1B expansion, Pritzker spokeswoman Emily Bittner said the governor “strongly believes that the most medically vulnerable in our state must qualify for vaccination. as quickly as possible, and that it would be unfair to the medically vulnerable as cancer patients whose vaccine was denied in Illinois.
“Although vaccine supply remains limited across the country, the pipeline has started to increase and almost 100 million additional doses are on the horizon,” said Bittner in a statement. “Federal guidance already includes this vulnerable group, and the governor is particularly invested in expanding access because this group includes a disproportionately large proportion of people of color who are vulnerable.”
And some local health departments have already said they are ready to move on to the next priority groups “in the coming weeks,” according to Pritzker’s office.
Illinois’ stock was almost 2.4 million doses, as the state reported the second highest number of vaccinations in a single day, with 69,029 vaccines applied on Wednesday.
About 1.5 million doses were administered in total, but only 346,773 people, or about 2.7% of the population, received both necessary doses. The continuous average number of shots administered per day in the state is 56,094.
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Although Lightfoot and Preckwinkle say it is too early to expand the group, other groups are furious that they are not there.
Rescuers, grocery workers, manufacturing workers and other frontline categories are included in Phase 1B, but construction workers who were labeled essential during the pandemic are scheduled for Phase 1C, which has not yet been scheduled.
“We have been 100% committed, responding to the call to serve day after day, while putting our own health at risk,” said Don Finn, business manager at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 134. “We have assisted as members of Local 134 they contracted COVID-19, brought it to their families and even lost their lives because of it. And now the governor says that we do not deserve access to the vaccine or wave 2? It is outrageous, insecure, dangerous and disrespectful. ”
A spokeswoman said Pritzker “understands the frustration of those who are eager to be vaccinated” and remains “eager to expand the group of people who qualify for vaccination as soon as possible”.
Contributing: Andrew Sullender