Coronavirus Vaccine Wait Time: Where You Stand In McHenry Co.

MCHENRY COUNTY, IL — With the United Kingdom approving a COVID-19 vaccine for use this week and Illinois officials preparing for rollout in the coming weeks, the New York Times, the Surgo Foundation and Ariadne Labs have come up with a way to calculate the number of people who will need a vaccine in each state and county — and where McHenry County residents stand in that line.

For example, an average 40-year-old McHenry County resident with no professional or health-related special circumstances would be in line behind 268.7 people across the United States, according to the study.

In Illinois, that same 40-year-old would be behind 10.5 million others who are at higher risk, in a state with a population of nearly 13 million. In McHenry County, 235,700 would be ahead of them in a county with approximately 307,700 residents.

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The same person with higher risk health conditions has a ticket behind 830,600 others in Illinois and 13,8000 others in McHenry County.

A healthy first responder would be behind 763,800 others in line on the state level and 12,100 in McHenry County.

To find out where you stand in line, you can input your specific information on the Times website.

Vaccine Rollout

No matter where you end up in line for vaccination, Illinois has been preparing to deliver the COVID-19 vaccine for months.

"We’ll be ready to go," when a vaccine is approved, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said last week. And on Friday, state officials announced preliminary plans for distributing the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the state.

• IL Vaccine Plan: First Doses Could Be Just Days Away

The first COVID-19 virus vaccines from Pfizer recently arrived at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Pfizer's vaccine was just approved in the United Kingdom and is up for emergency use authorization in the United States next week — Cambridge-based Moderna's vaccine is hoping for the same the following week.

During a news conference Friday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker shared the state's plan for distributing vaccines, which will go first to front-line healthcare workers and residents of long-term-care facilities.

The Food and Drug Administration is set to review the Pfizer vaccine on Dec. 10 and a vaccine by Moderna on Dec. 17. If the Pfizer vaccine gets the green light, the first 109,000 doses allocated to Illinois could be doled out starting the week of Dec. 13, Pritzker said.

From there, distribution of the Moderna vaccine, if approved, could begin the week of Christmas. Both vaccines require two doses and, as more vaccines are approved, the state is expected to get a larger allocation to distribute.

"It's going to take multiple weeks of distribution to get our healthcare workers their first of two doses they require while also getting to our long-term care residents," Pritzker said. There are 654,598 front-line health-care workers and 109,227 residents in long-term care facilities in Illinois.

Front-line essential workers including first responders, those older than 65 years old and people with multiple comorbidities and serious illness could be next up. This group will be "much larger" than the first and distribution could take "many months," Pritzker said.

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• IL Vaccine Plan: First Doses Could Be Just Days Away