Vaccine Eligibility Expands Monday In Suburban Cook County

COOK COUNTY, IL — An additional 150,000 appointments to receive a first jab of the coronavirus vaccine will be available next week in the Cook County suburbs and the collar counties when eligibility expands to include everyone aged 16 and up, state and county officials announced.

More than 250,000 doses are scheduled to be delivered next week to mass vaccination sites and area pharmacies across the state for the week starting Monday, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker's office.

"Starting Monday, every Illinoisan 16 and over, no matter where they live or where they work, will be eligible to access these life-saving COVID-19 vaccines," Pritzker said. "Weeks ago we set our sights on April 12 as the date for every county receiving vaccine from the state to open to full eligibility, and I am so proud that all 101 counties, plus suburban Cook County, have met that timeline."

As of Thursday, 73 percent of Illinois senior citizens and 42 percent of residents 16 and up have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with a quarter of the state's population aged 16 or older now fully vaccinated.

Pritzker said the increasing prevalence of COVID-19 variants made it all the more important for people to seek vaccination as soon as possible.

"We're at a point where the variants are rising. They're coming at the population so fast at every age. We need to make sure that we open this up to everybody. There are lots of different groups that have been prioritized prior, and groups that you could separate out and say we want to prioritize going forward. But we now need to get as many shots into arms as quickly as we possibly can," the governor said Thursday, speaking to reporters at a Forest Park mass vaccination site.

"We're reserving some vaccine to make sure we're targeting particularly vulnerable groups that aren't fully vaccinated yet, but right now we just want people to show up and get vaccinated as soon as possible."

There are more than 1,000 vaccination locations statewide, and more than 80 of the state's 102 counties have already moved to Phase 2 of the vaccine distribution plan, with doses available for all residents old enough to receive one of the three approved jabs — Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

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Cook County Health CEO Israel Rocha said the pace of vaccination in the county had been increasing, although 1.2 million people pre-registered to sign up for an appointment through the suburbs were still waiting.

"Many, many people are making the decision to get vaccinated, and we know that others are waiting to see how their friends and family will tolerate it, but we want to remind everyone that this is a very personal decision. We ask you to get the information, get the facts and rely on facts and science to make your decisions to protect yourself and your family," Rocha said.

Rocha said surveys indicate concerns about side effects were one of the biggest factors preventing some people from seeking a vaccine. He said the documented side effects are far preferable to the alternative.

"The side effects of the vaccine are far better and much more mild than having COVID — the COVID experience," he said.

Polling from AP-NORC show one in four Americans say they probably or definitely will not be vaccinated. That group tends to be younger and identify as Republican, according to the AP.

But the same poll found the number of people who want to be vaccinated has been on the rise, jumping from 67 percent in late January to 75 percent this week.

Data from the Illinois Department of Public Health shows the state's positivity rate, number of new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are all rising. The positivity rate is at a two-month high. The rate of new cases is up 50 percent over the two weeks ending Thursday. And the number of people in Illinois hospitals with confirmed cases of COVID-19 was up 60 percent over the past 14 days.

IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike was asked what might explain data that shows the state of Texas has a COVID-19 incidence rate of less than half of Illinois. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifted restrictions on businesses and the statewide mask mandate nearly a month ago. Illinois' mask mandate is going nowhere, the health director said.

"I don't think you can find a scientist, I don't think you can find any public health expert, I don't think you can find any physician that will refute, or try to challenge in any way the efficacy, and the import, and the usefulness of masks," Ezike said. "So I think that debate should be concluded."

As of Thursday, both states are reporting an average of about 3,000 new cases a day — but the population of Texas is about 29 million, compared to 12 million in Illinois.

"In terms of where different states are, it depends on how many susceptible people you have available to be infected," she said. "Potentially they have fewer people available to be infected because they've had more infections. So I don't know the details of Texas, managing Illinois is plenty enough."

In suburban Cook County, more than 87 percent of those 65 and older have received at least one vaccine, and more than 32 percent of residents have been fully vaccinated. That total does not include the four municipal health departments in the Cook County suburbs.

Public health officials in Chicago, which receives a separate allocation of doses from the federal government and sets its own eligibility rules, plan to open up vaccine appointments a week after the state. The governor encouraged Chicagoans seeking a jab to sign up for an appointment at one of the state's 11 suburban mass vaccination sites.

"I want to make sure that people in Chicago know that they are welcome to sign up for our mass vaccination sites. Obviously you know Chicago is now aiming, as I understand it, to open up April 19th, so there'll just be a week there between April 12th and April 19th. But if people choose to come to our mass vaccination sites, they're absolutely welcome."

More than 80 Illinois counties had already opened up eligibility for COVID-19 vaccine appointments to everyone 16 and up as of Thursday.

Cook County Health is expected to open up thousands of new first-dose appointments at noon on Friday.

People interested in booking an appointment at a site in suburban Cook County can visit vaccine.cookcountyil.gov or call 833-308-1988 on weekdays between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

A multilingual statewide vaccine appointment call center is available seven days a week at 833-621-1284, from 6 a.m. to midnight.