Illinois coronavirus: more residents with underlying diseases eligible for vaccines February 25

Starting February 25, residents of Illinois aged 16 or older with underlying health conditions or disabilities will be eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine, Governor JB Pritzker announced on Wednesday.

This will include pregnant women and people with diabetes, heart disease, cancer or sickle cell anemia, Pritzker said after visiting a new mass vaccination site in Quincy.

The expansion of Phase 1B of the Illinois distribution plan will follow CDC guidelines to vaccinate people with these and other conditions, the Democratic governor said.

So far, about 4 million of the state’s 12.7 million people have been given the green light to sign up for vaccines – if they are able to find an appointment to get one of the coveted doses that remain rare.

Eligible residents to date include healthcare workers, residents and nursing home workers, certain other “essential frontline” workers, and all residents 65 years of age or older. In the expanded Phase 1B, the age requirement will be lowered to 16 for people with underlying diseases, although the size of this population is unclear.

“Those who are under 65 and live with co-morbidities have a high risk of serious complications or even death,” Pritzker said. “We must not waste time protecting them.”

Other conditions covered in the expanded phase include people who have or have had chronic kidney disease, COPD, lung disease, an “immunosuppressed state” from a solid organ transplant and obesity, according to the office. by Pritzker.

“Governor Pritzker’s decision to expand Phase 1B to include people with disabilities gives appropriate priority to people with disabilities in the immunization distribution plan, and we thank and applaud the Governor for his leadership,” said John Herring, executive director of the Illinois Independence Center Network. Life.

The governor noted that the federal government’s weekly vaccine shipments have increased by about 30% since President Joe Biden took office, while a third vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson is in the process of federal approval.

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But dosages have always been hard to come by for eligible Illinois. In total, nearly 2.2 million doses have been shipped to the state, and about 1.5 million have entered the military.

Only 327,413 people received the two required doses, or about 2.6% of the population of Illinois. The Illinois Department of Public Health aims to vaccinate 80% of the population to achieve herd immunity.

Nearly 63,000 doses were administered statewide on Tuesday, officials said, the fourth-highest daily total on record, bringing the state’s seven-day moving average to a high of 55,135 shots distributed per day .

“I wish I could magically conjure enough vaccines that we could get all of our Illinoisens vaccinated right now, I really do,” Pritzker said. “This will happen over the next few months, but today we all need to be patient as more vaccines are still being produced. And, in the meantime, there is no doubt that we will all wear our masks and follow the mitigation measures so that more of our neighbors are healthy and alive when it is their turn to get vaccinated.

A total of 517 vaccination locations have been set up statewide, including 134 new ones last week.

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Infection rates have dropped significantly since the first doses of Illinois were injected two months ago.

Public health officials announced 2,825 newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases detected among 82,885 tests, keeping the state’s average positivity rate at 3.3% – as low as it has fallen since the summer.

Coronavirus-related hospitalizations are also at one-third of state peak levels, with 2,082 patients occupying beds statewide as of Tuesday evening.

But the virus has killed 53 more, including 23 in the Chicago area.

This daily toll is within the state average over the past week. The death rate has more than halved from a month ago.

Since last March, nearly 1.2 million Illinois have been infected and at least 19,739 of them have died.