Illinois Coronavirus: Pritzker allows local authorities to increase vaccine eligibility amid rising cases

Citing a “possible worrying trend” in increasing COVID-19 infection rates across the state, Governor JB Pritzker on Friday deployed vaccination teams in five hard-hit counties in northwest Illinois and authorized other local health departments. expanding eligibility to get more vaccines as quickly as possible.

Public health officials say they have seen demand drop in several counties, leaving appointments unfulfilled, while the average statewide rate of coronavirus testing has increased by 38% in less than two weeks.

That’s why the governor’s health team is allowing local health officials to start distributing doses to any resident aged 16 or over “at their immediate discretion,” according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

“We want to avoid a sudden increase and we try to overcome this as quickly as possible, ensuring not only vaccinate more people, but also teams that will go to the regions of the state where this is happening and … making changes so that we can reduce the numbers” , said Pritzker during a news conference unrelated to the South Side.

The worrying increase also threatens to derail Pritzker’s “transition phase” plan, which was on the verge of easing further restrictions on business in weeks.

“We cannot move forward if our metrics are going backwards,” said Illinois public health director Dr. Ngozi Ezike in a statement.

Pritzker’s latest vaccination edict applies mainly to areas in the interior of the state where demand “appears to have declined,” according to the governor’s office. Demand for vaccines is still far outpacing supply in Chicago and its collar counties.

Residents should contact their local health departments directly to see if they have increased eligibility.

“Each county is different and local health departments know best how to vaccinate people in their communities as quickly and equitably as possible,” said Ezike.

Pritzker had previously announced plans to open appointments for all residents aged 16 and over from April 12, although officials in Chicago and the Cook County suburb have said that this is likely to happen closer to May 1 for providers. of the city area.

For now, Pritzker is also sending “quick response” vaccination teams to five counties in the northwestern part of the state, where experts say they need to “administer doses quickly to contain rising trends.”

The state is scheduled to receive a historic record of nearly 1 million doses of vaccine from the federal government next week. With the latest 126,710 vaccines administered across the state on Thursday, nearly 2 million residents have already been fully immunized, but that represents only 15.4% of the population.

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Illinois had an average of 99,449 injections given per day last week, while COVID-19 infection and hospitalization rates – which were close to record lows earlier this month – increased just as they did last October, before an autumn resurgence devastating.

For the first time since February 6, the public health department notified more than 3,000 new cases of the disease in a single day, with 3,002 infections diagnosed out of 76,774 tests. This raised the state’s moving average rate of positivity to 2.9%, which was 2.1% on March 13.

Hospitals were treating 1,302 patients with COVID-19 on Thursday night, the most they have seen since late February – and a 15% increase compared to two weeks ago.

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“While these rates are certainly significantly lower than the peak, they represent a potential early warning sign of a possible resurgence,” the state health department said in a statement.

The state also reported an additional 33 deaths, including that of a Cook County teenager.

Overall, the death rate in Illinois has been declining since late December, but experts agree that an increase in cases is usually followed, weeks later, by increases in hospitalizations and deaths.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Commissioner of Public Health, Dr. Allison Arwady, raised the alarm earlier this week about increased transmission among young people aged 18 to 39. The governor’s health team noted that the city has seen its daily case rate jump 50% in the past week. Cases have increased by about 40% in the suburban Cook district, where officials still followed the city to ease restrictions on open-air restaurants on Friday in its “cautious approach to reopening”.

Pritzker praised his “aggressive action” against the potential peak about a week after outlining the “bridge phase” plan before a potential full reopening as early as May.

To reach the bridge phase, 70% of residents aged 65 and over must receive at least a first dose of the vaccine – a milestone the state will achieve “in the next few days,” officials said.

The other requirements are to keep 20% or more of the intensive care unit beds open across the state and to keep hospitalization and mortality rates stable or decreasing over a 28-day period. Both metrics are going in the wrong direction.

“This is very worrying for us and makes us stop here to evaluate these numbers,” said Pritzker. “What we want to do above all is to make sure: is this a failure in numbers? … Or this is something that could have some support resources, in which case, obviously, we want to be extremely careful. ”

Last year, more than 1.2 million residents tested positive for the disease and 21,203 died.