UPDATED 4:00 P.M. | McLean County health officials hope walk-in, evening and drive-thru vaccination clinics will help get more people vaccinated against
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Mary Altaffer / AP
Originally published on April 13, 2021 5:12 pm
The McLean County Health Department (MCHD) is suspending use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine after federal regulators recommended the vaccine be shelved because of rare reports of potentially dangerous blood clots.
Illinois State University officials said Tuesday the weekly clinic the health department hosts on Thursday will switch to the Pfizer vaccine, which requires a second dose.
The Pritzker administration also said it would follow the federal guidance against using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
MCHD public affairs coordinator Marianne Manko said the health department received a “very small amount of the vaccine” prior to this week. The one-dose J&J shot was used primarily for targeted populations that health officials consider harder to reach, including college students and rural residents.
Record hospitalizations
A record 45 McLean County residents are hospitalized with COVID-19. All but 2% of Bloomington-Normal hospital beds are full, while 88% of intensive care beds are occupied. Carle BroMenn Medical Center and OSF St. Joseph Medical Center have 43 COVID patients under their care.
MCHD said 545 people are isolating at home and 119 people have recovered in the last 24 hours. The count of those who have been released from quarantine is 15,360.
McLean County’s seven-day testing positivity rate stands at 5.5%. That’s up slightly from Thursday and close to the cumulative rate of 5.6%, based on more than 288,900 tests conducted since the start of the pandemic.
Staff / WGLT
UPDATED 11:50 a.m. | Hundreds of Unit 5 students were quarantined in the past week as McLean County faces a third wave in coronavirus cases, this time affecting more young people.
There were 400 students in Unit 5 who were newly quarantined over the past week, with 55 new students testing positive for the coronavirus, according to Unit 5’s data dashboard updated on Friday. The previous high for this year was last week (with 128 newly quarantined students and 43 positive tests).
The hardest-hit school in the past week was Normal West high school, with 112 quarantined students and 15 positive tests, according to Unit 5.
More and more students have been returning to in-person instruction in Unit 5 in recent weeks. On Monday, all in-person learners in grades 6-12 returned for four days per week in person.