With the launch of the historic vaccine in Illinois expected to increase this week thanks to United Center being used as the largest mass vaccination site in the city, officials on Sunday announced major changes in who is eligible to receive vaccines at the Near West Side arena in an attempt to ensure that doses are also available to communities most affected by the pandemic.
Beginning Sunday afternoon, residents outside Cook County will no longer be eligible for consultation on the United Center website. In the meantime, anyone who lives within the city limits and is eligible to receive the vaccine under Phase 1B + of the state’s distribution plan will be able to apply for consultations at the United Center. This includes anyone aged 18 and over with underlying health problems, as well as people aged 65 and over.
Authorities are also reserving appointments for Chicago residents who live in the areas most affected by the virus and have had the highest rates of serious illness and death; Appointments are also being reserved for community-based organizations that aim to reach special populations in Chicago, including people with disabilities.
These decisions were made under the guidance of FEMA to ensure a more equitable distribution of the vaccine.
Officials have appointed United Center to be a center for mass vaccination because of its proximity to the city’s most vulnerable communities, but more than half of the appointments taken out in the past three days have been made by people outside of Chicago.
Early data indicated that only 40% of the more than 40,000 seniors who signed up for appointments at the United Center since Thursday morning were Chicago residents.
“Equity is central to our COVID-19 strategy, and as we strive to vaccinate the entire city, our commitment to equity is more important than ever,” said Mayor Lori Lightfoot in a statement.
Tens of thousands of open hours remain for the United Center, which is expected to distribute about 6,000 doses a day starting on Tuesday, officials said. To register, go to zocdoc.com/vaccine or call (312) 746-4835. Call centers will be open from 8 am to 8 pm, Monday to Saturday, and from 8 am to 4 pm, on Sunday.
Illinois has administered more than 3.35 million doses of the vaccine in the past three months. On Saturday, 98,550 shots were injected into the arms of Illinois residents, marking the fifth highest total number in a single day, officials said.
The moving average of the state of shots fired per day is up to 93,183.
With the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine continuing to gain momentum, Illinois on Sunday also announced its lowest number of daily cases and number of deaths in a single day in months.
State health officials reported 1,068 new probable and confirmed cases of COVID-19, the lowest number of new cases recorded in a day since July 21. Sunday’s cases were found among the 68,094 exams processed by the Illinois Department of Public Health on the last day, by a daily positivity rate of approximately 1.6%.
Illinois’s daily caseload exceeded 2,000 just twice in March, 10 times in the last month and twice in March. Because of this, the state’s seven-day positivity rate has dropped to almost the lowest level ever. On Sunday, that number, which experts use to assess the spread of the virus across the state, was 2.3% – a percentage point below the previous month.
Officials also announced 14 virus-related deaths, marking the lowest daily number of pandemic deaths since October. Five of those deaths have been reported in the Chicago area.
Hospitalizations across the state also returned to pre-peak levels. As of Saturday night, 1,141 beds were occupied across the state by patients with coronavirus, 255 of them in intensive care units and 112 in ventilators, officials said.
Nearly 1.2 million people in Illinois have been confirmed to be carriers of the virus, out of more than 18.6 million tests processed last year. The state has a virus recovery rate of 98%.