COVID-19 Vaccination Data Released By Evanston Health Department

EVANSTON, IL — City officials began publishing detailed vaccination data online Tuesday, showing both the number of doses administered by the Evanston Health and Human Services Department and the number of doses distributed to local health care providers.

Evanston's new vaccine dashboard shows the number of first and second doses administered at point of dispensing clinics, or PODs, hosted by the city, using data collected at the time of registration.

City staff plan to update the dashboard within a day of the end of any city-sponsored POD or distribution to a health care partner, such as Evanston Hospital, St. Francis Hospital, Erie Family Health Center or Northwestern University.

As of Tuesday, the city had received 15,286 doses from the state. Of those, the city had administered 8,256 itself, while 7,030 were distributed to the other organizations.

For the city-run clinics, the vaccine dashboard shows the date of distribution and the number of doses per day. It includes data by age and some priority groups. It does not include other demographic data, such as ethnicity, sex or Ward of residence, nor does it include any demographic data indicating who received the doses distributed to health care partners or the dates when they were distributed.

According to the dashboard, city staff are working with the Illinois Department of Public Health to obtain more complete data on every dose given to residents of Evanston, regardless of where they receive a jab.

A total of 177 doses had been given to law enforcement officers, 262 doses had been given to workers in education, manufacturing, firefighting, emergency medical services, day care or public transit, and another 1,600 doses had been administered to other essential workers from both the Phase 1a and Phase 1b priority groups, according to a breakdown of the recipients of vaccine at city PODs.

Evanston city staff had previously provided incomplete answers to or ignored reporters' Freedom of Information Act requests for vaccine data.

Earlier: Evanston Ignores FOIA Deadlines, Fails To Provide Vaccine Data

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As of Monday, there were nearly 15,500 doses on hand at health departments in suburban Cook County and over 35,600 on hand at community partners, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health.

According to the dashboard, A total of 2,837 people have been fully vaccinated at events hosted by the city — about 4 percent of the city's population. That compares to 164,000 people fully vaccinated, or 6.6 percent, across suburban Cook County as a whole, according to IDPH vaccination data.

Earlier: Evanston Mayor, 52, Receives Vaccine Ahead Of Essential Workers

Last week, Mayor Steve Hagerty announced he had been declared a front-line essential worker and received a vaccine along with other city staff "critical to the continuity of operations."

A city attorney denied a request for a list of which job titles were determined critical, alleging the release of the job titles would unavoidably reveal who received the vaccine — in violation of medical privacy rules.

So far, Evanston has not begun offering vaccines to members of Phase 1b+, which began in Illinois outside Cook County last week.

The expanded second vaccine priority group includes people under 65 with high-risk conditions, including obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart and lung diseases, chronic kidney disease, solid organ transplant, sickle cell disease, smoking and people with physical or mental disabilities.

Hagerty and Ike Ogbo, director of the health department, and Greg Olsen, public health manager, are scheduled to take part in a video update Thursday to answer questions about the city's vaccination process.