Some IL Health Depts. To Immediately Open Vaccines To All Adults

CHICAGO — As Illinois state health officials are responding to what Gov. J.B. Pritzker called a "significant move upward" in positive coronavirus cases and increased hospitalizations, state leaders announced the expansion of rapid response vaccination teams to five counties across the state where health departments have seen a low demand for vaccines.

The move allows local health departments in those areas to open eligibility to anyone over the age of 16 immediately.

State officials said several Illinois counties have seen demand for vaccines slow, and the state is authorizing health officials there to begin vaccinating all residents 16 and older "at their immediate discretion, in order to use the vaccine doses they currently have available." A similar move will be made across Illinois on April 12, Pritzker has announced, but the change was made Friday to address the surge in new cases.

It's not clear exactly which health departments will expand eligibility early, and the state did not provide a list. Friday's announcement came on a day when the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 3,0002 new confirmed and probable cases and 33 new deaths across the state. In addition, the health department announced that 1,302 people have been hospitalized with COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, including 254 which are in intensive care units.

Pritzker announced Friday in Chicago that the expansion of vaccinations to more residents is being done in response to a surge in cases. As of Friday, the state's positivity rate stood at 3.3 percent while the state was averaging just under 100,000 vaccinations per day.

Pritzker said in areas that have seen slowdowns in vaccinations, he did not want doses of the vaccines "just sitting around", which predicated the move to open up appointments to more residents.

Mobile response vaccination sites include:

• March 31: Carroll County
• April 1: Ogle County
• April 2: Boone County
• April 3: Lee County
• April 5: Whiteside County

"We want to make sure that they get into people's arms as soon as possible especially if we're going to see an uptick here in the numbers," Pritzker said Friday. "We want to avoid a surge and so we've tried to jump on top of this as fast as possible making sure we're not only vaccinating more people but that we've got teams going to the regions of the state where this is happening and infatuating change so we can drive down the numbers."

Health officials hope by expanding access to vaccines they can head off a recent uptick in hospitalizations and case rates before the state finds itself in the middle of another coronavirus surge.

“Recent increases in hospital admissions and test positivity are concerning new developments and we don’t want to go down the same path we’ve seen before and experience a resurgence in the pandemic, which is why Governor Pritzker directed us to use all our resources to halt these upticks,” IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said in a statement. “We cannot move forward if our metrics are going backward. The vaccine will help get us to the end of the pandemic, but we need to continue to reduce spread of the virus by wearing a mask, avoiding large crowds, keeping six feet of distance, getting tested after seeing others, and getting vaccinated as soon as possible.”

The state is expected to receive about a million doses next week from the federal government, an all-time high. But health officials worry that declining demand could lead to unused shots unless eligibility criteria is broadened.

“The number one goal for the state is to get as many people vaccinated, as quickly and safely as possible in order to stay ahead of variants,” Ezike said. “This shift is similar to what we saw when expanding vaccine eligibility from Phase 1B to Phase 1B+ where some parts of the state were ready to move forward, while others were not. Each county is different and local health departments know better how to vaccinate people in their communities as soon as and as equitably as possible.”

Going forward, communities will continue to receive a "baseline allocation of doses," but beyond that number, doses will be allocated based on demand, officials said.

Pritzker said Friday he's concerned about people of all ages, especially those who suffer from pre-existing medical conditions and those who are 65 years or older. Pritzker said that about 67 percent of residents over 65 have been vaccinated, but he said there are still a lot of people in that age group who still need to receive shots.

Pritzker said the increased cases and new hospitalizations are among younger people, which has health officials concerns. When state health officials announced plans to move to the Bridge Phase of the vaccination plan, they wanted to make sure that hospitalizations were not going up. In recent days, however, Pritzker said that metric has changed, particularly in the area of new hospitalizations.

"This is very concerning to us and it makes us take a pause to evaluate these numbers," Pritzker said. "What we want to do is (see), is this a blip in the numbers? Is this a short-term surge that is taking place that will come back down or is this something that could have some sustaining features to it?"

In addition, mobile response vaccination teams will be deployed over the next two weeks to five counties facing a possible surge of new cases. Pritzker said that he is pleased with the Biden administration's commitment to getting doses out to states in a timely fashion and said he expects to see millions of doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine arriving in the state in coming day before seeing a sustained increase in the vaccine as expansion to more residents continues.

For now, though, the governor wants to make sure needs are being met by those who need it most.

"It's not that we're aiming at a specific age group," he said. "We just want to make sure that we're vaccinating everybody that is vulnerable and then getting every vaccine dose out and into people's arms as quickly as possible."