A new type of large tent will arrive at the United Center next week, and large seats – meaning appointments – are still available.
It may not be the best show on Earth, but officials say the new mass vaccination site, which will be launched next week outside the Near West stadium, offers Illinois seniors their best chance of immunizing themselves against the coronavirus.
And while it was a circus for many Illinois residents jumping hoops to lock up their vaccine vacancies elsewhere, thousands of United Center appointments were still available on Saturday afternoon for people aged 65 and over.
These appointments are reserved for seniors until 4pm on Sunday, when people aged 16 and over with chronic health problems will be able to pick up leftovers.
“The city is working 24 hours a day to ensure that all residents of our city are vaccinated, especially the elderly, who are among the most vulnerable to the disease,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office said in a statement. “Vaccination of older residents – regardless of the underlying conditions – has the greatest impact in preventing COVID-19-related deaths, since more than 80% of deaths in Chicago were in the elderly.”
Only about a quarter of the 110,000 available consultations had been scheduled as early as Friday morning. Authorities did not provide an updated count on Saturday, but many slots remained available online for the third and fourth weeks of March.
City officials said they “significantly expanded” their capacity in the multilingual call center, making appointments on the phone (312) 746-4835. To reduce waiting times, however, they recommend making reservations online at zocdoc.com/vaccine.
The first United Center vaccinations will be administered on Tuesday at the site operated by the federal government, which will distribute about 6,000 doses a day – providing the last injection in the arm to launch a vaccine that is gaining momentum in Illinois.
The state set a record for a second consecutive day with 134,239 vaccines delivered on Friday, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Almost 3.3 million doses have been administered since December, and about 1.1 million people have been fully vaccinated with the two necessary doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or with Johnson & Johnson’s unique new formula.
This means that about 8.5% of Illinois residents have been immunized, well below the 80% that officials intend to achieve collective immunity.
While that goal is in sight, the continuous average number of shots taken each day in Illinois reaches a new high of 90,428.
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At the same time, infection rates across the state have dropped almost to the lowest levels ever, although new and more infectious strains of the virus have been identified in the state – and the oldest are still taking a brutal toll.
Officials reported 2,565 new cases were diagnosed among 79,248 tests, to increase Illinois’ average positivity rate slightly to 2.4%.
The state also recorded another 50 deaths from COVID-19, including that of a Cook County man in his 30s.
That’s higher than the state’s daily average of about 37 deaths a day last week, but overall, the death rate dropped from about 56 a day in early February.
The death toll in Illinois last year rose to 20,750, among 1.2 million test-positive residents.