Daywatch: A year of the COVID-19 pandemic, changes coming to United Center vaccinations and Illinois schools loosen reopening guidelines chicagotribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chicagotribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The United Center and Des Plaines mass vaccination sites opened for appointments Thursday, and tens of thousands were snatched up in mere hours.
Many United Center appointments remain open. Of the 110,000 total appointments, officials said Tuesday only 40,000 were booked by Illinois residents 65 and older, and only 10,000 by Chicagoans in 1B plus. The rest, set aside after most senior appointments, went to people outside the city. We have to do this in a way that is consistent with equity, and that s critically important, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said.
Officials say the 50,000 unfilled appointments are not yet publicly available. Instead, Chicago and Cook County officials are conducting targeted outreach. The city is prioritizing five zip codes: 60608 on the Near West Side, and 60652, 60620, 60619 and 60649 on the South Side.
Twelve weeks since the first vaccine shipments arrived in Illinois, almost 3.5 million shots have been administered. About 1.2 million residents have been fully vaccinated since then, or about 9.4% of the population.
Half of all Illinoisans 65 or older have gotten at least one shot, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Overall, about a fifth of residents 16 or older have gotten a dose, Pritzker said.
The state’s gradually increasing vaccine uptake has seen coronavirus infection numbers dip to pandemic lows.
Officials reported 1,510 new cases were diagnosed among the latest 53,445 tests to keep Illinois’ rolling positivity rate at 2.3% just a notch above the all-time low of 2.2% the state reached for a day last week. And COVID-19 hospitalizations are about as low as they’ve been in a year, with 1,177 beds occupied statewide as of Monday night.