More Than 20K Illinoisans Have Now Died From COVID-19

ILLINOIS — More than 20,000 Illinoisans have now died from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus. The state reported 1,795 new cases on Wednesday and 24 more deaths, for a total of nearly 1.2 million infections and 20,057 deaths since the pandemic began last March.

Vaccine doses administered have more than doubled since last week, state health officials said Monday, but a major winter storm has delayed federal shipments of vaccines. While the state has been allocated approximately 365,000 doses, it has received only about 55,000 of those doses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said additional shipments may go out Wednesday.

State health officials had hoped to get ahead of the weather, ordering shipments of the vaccine to be delivered to its strategic stockpile ahead of the snowfall and distributing doses to providers as weather permits.

Even before the storm, vaccine supply was expected to be tight, with more second doses scheduled for the coming weeks than first doses. First doses are expected to increase again in March, health officials said.

"Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require a second dose to be up to 95% effective. Second doses need to be administered four weeks after the first dose for those who receive the Moderna vaccine, and three weeks for those who receive Pfizer," according to an Illinois Department of Public Health news release. "As the number of first doses being administered has increased over the past several weeks, now the number of doses needed for the second shot are also increasing. Therefore, the amount of vaccine available to be administered as a first dose must decrease. Over the next several weeks, as the number of first doses administered decreases to account for the limited amount of vaccine, we will begin to see a balancing of vaccine available for both doses."

In total, Illinois has received 2.5 million doses of the vaccine. It had administered about 1.9 million of those doses as of Tuesday.

As of Tuesday night, 1,719 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 across Illinois, including 375 in intensive care and 176 on ventilators.

The statewide case positivity rate — a rolling, seven-day average — is now 2.8 percent. The test positivity rate is 3.4 percent.

The first case of the B.1.351 South African coronavirus variant was detected in Illinois last week; and as of Tuesday, the state had reported 25 cases of the B.1.1.7 U.K. variant.

Both variants have undergone mutations in the proteins that form the virus's spiky crown. These spike proteins help the virus attach itself to cells in the nose and can even penetrate the blood-brain barrier. It's these spike proteins that Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines program cells to replicate, triggering an immune response. As such, any mutations in them could be concerning for the effectiveness of those vaccines.

Because of the mutations, both variants are thought to spread more easily than the original coronavirus, but studies suggest so far current vaccines offer at least some protection.

“We expected to see more cases of variants detected in Illinois, including the B.1.351 strain,” said state health department director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “These variants seem to spread more rapidly, which can lead to more cases of COVID-19 and even another surge. Our best path to defeating this virus as quickly as possible remains wearing our masks and getting vaccinated when it’s our turn.”