Chicago will begin administering the coronavirus vaccine to residents 65 and older as early as next week, beginning the next phase of the city’s deployment, health officials confirmed Wednesday.
The Chicago Department of Public Health will allow residents over the age of 65 to start vaccinating next week, “but only with the leftover doses not claimed by health care workers and residents of the facilities.” long-term care, ”the department said.
“This would launch the next phase of the vaccination effort,” according to CDPH.
While this is not the full Phase 1B initially planned for the city, it comes at the request of the Trump Administration, which this week called on states to vaccinate people 65 and older and under 65 years with underlying health conditions that put them. with high risk.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is expected to announce this week when Illinois will enter Phase 1B of the coronavirus vaccine launch, although some areas may already do so.
“I look forward to making a formal announcement later this week, when Illinois
will move to phase 1B at the state level, “Pritzker said during his coronavirus update Monday.” Of course, anyone in Phase 1A who has decided not to get vaccinated will always be eligible for any subsequent rounds. without leaving a vaccine sitting on the shelves as we move forward. ”
As of Monday, 587,900 total doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been delivered to Illinois, 478,175 doses had been sent to public and private health care providers outside of Chicago, and 109,725 doses had gone to Chicago suppliers.
Illinois as a whole had administered approximately 334,939 doses of vaccine on Sunday night.
“We are making significant progress in Phase 1A and I appreciate the hard work of health care providers across the state to move forward as quickly as possible in this phase,” Pritzker said. “In some communities, they have even been able to substantially complete phase 1A. IDPH allows any local health department in this position to move to the early stages of phase 1B because we want to make sure any available vaccine is administered. quickly to the priority groups we have established “.
Phase 1B will focus on residents over the age of 65 and “essential front-line workers,” including first aid workers, education workers such as teachers and support staff, daycare workers, grocery store employees, workers of the postal service and much more.
The age requirement in Illinois is ten years lower than the initial recommendations of the Immunization Practice Advisory Committee, “to reduce mortality from COVID-19 and limit community outreach to Black and Brown communities,” the governor said. .
Phase 1B will include approximately 3.2 million Illinois residents, according to the state.
Chicago health officials had said they expected Phase 1B to begin in the city in February or March.
“The thing depends on how quickly the vaccine arrives,” said Commissioner Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health. “Right now we get about 32,000 doses of first dose of vaccine a week. Think about how many people there are over 65 – 370,000 – how many essential workers – hundreds of thousands, 150,000, just in education – will have to be patient here. But I hope we will probably start, you know, in the period from February to March, and then continue vaccinating for the next few months.