Late planning, decentralized oversight, a ‘Hunger Games’ sign-up: How Illinois has struggled more than most states rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine
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Late planning, decentralized oversight, a ‘Hunger Games’ sign-up: How Illinois has struggled more than most states rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine
Joe Mahr and Angie Leventis Lourgos, Chicago Tribune
February 6, 2021, 3:30 AM·17 min read
Marj Leopardo is 85. Her husband, Sam, is 88. They both have health issues. And their days are now consumed with one thing: the vaccine hunt.
The Crystal Lake couple are, on paper, just the kind of people the government wants at the front of the vaccine line. But they live in a country that’s struggled with the rollout, and in a state that’s struggled more than others.
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Northwestern Medicine has been distributing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to affiliates since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration first issued its emergency use authorization on Dec. 11, 2020. Among the first to receive the vaccine are Feinberg physicians and students.
The Pfizer vaccine uses mRNA to create an immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The immune system generates “tools” to fight the virus, teaching the body to defend itself in case of another infection. To do so, the mRNA vaccine gives instructions that help the body produce the proteins ordinarily found on the virus causing COVID-19. While these proteins are harmless, they resemble the virus enough in order to trigger an immune response the body is able to remember and replicate. But to reach full effectiveness, one must receive a second dose three weeks later.
A new study co-authored by Jain and other doctors at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago revealed physicians are sexually harassed and personally attacked online on the basis of their religion, race or recommendations.