McHenry Co. Vaccine Allotment Is Running Low: Officials

MCHENRY COUNTY, IL — McHenry County health officials are waiting on word from the state regarding how many vaccines are headed this way for clinics and mass vaccination sites.

So far, the county has not received its allotment this week for next week’s clinics and will go through all of its current inventory of Moderna and Pfizer shots in the coming days without more coming in, public health officials said.

The county also hasn’t received three-week projections on the number of vaccines headed this way, which public health officials rely on for when planning for future clinics, McHenry County Department of Health nursing director Susan Karras told Patch Wednesday.

The health department is hoping to hear more by Wednesday night.

Demand remains "really high," for vaccines and the lack of communication from the state about future allotments is worrisome, public health officials said during a McHenry County Board of Health meeting Monday.

"Right now the demand is really high. When we open clinics on websites they fill up really quick. If cancellations happen on the day of the clinic those appointments are picked up really quickly," said McHenry County Department of Health nursing director Susan Karras during a Board of Health meeting on Monday.

As of Tuesday, 23.18 percent of the county's total population is fully vaccinated. The county is nearing the state's benchmark to vaccinate more than 80 percent of residents 65 years and older, Karras said Monday. Of the residents who've received a vaccine, 79 percent are over 65 years old, and 36 percent are between the ages of 16 and 64.

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The county had been receiving regular updates on the number of vaccines that would be allotted here in recent weeks.

"We will be depleting our stores of vaccines if we do not have more coming in," Karras said Monday. "We did not get our three-week allotment from the state, so we are getting some clarification why we did not get that report from last week."

Last week, the county was allotted more than 9,000 doses from the state, but this week it only received 1,170 doses, according to MCDH data posted online. From mid-March through early April, the weekly allotment has ranged from 10,920 to 12,320 doses.

The county hosts several vaccine clinics per week and runs two mass vaccination sites. There are also federal allotments of the vaccines that go to some pharmacies, including Walgreens.

The high demand for vaccines comes at a time when the county is seeing its COVID-19 positivity rate rise.

The rise is being tied to spring break travel and to school-related activities and extracurriculars — there was a recent outbreak at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake. Schools now offering more in-person classes and school nurses identifying more cases may be why more COVID cases are being reported among young people, Karras said.

As of Wednesday, the county's positivity rate was 7.8 percent but has been declining in recent days. New mitigations are not currently being considered partially because the hospital region the county is in includes Lake County, which historically has had a much lower positivity rate. Currently, Lake Co. has a 3.2 percent positivity rate.

"New hospital admissions have seen an increase of 20 percent in two weeks (in McHenry County)," Karras said. "That puts us at substantial spread in our county again."

With the school year quickly coming to an end, public health officials worry those in this younger age group, which has been driving up the COVID-19 positivity rate in the county, will be harder to track.

"The thing we do worry about is in the summer, we can’t track them anymore — that circulation will be much harder to track," Karras said.

In good news, another National Guard unit will be headed to McHenry County to assist with vaccinations at the county's clinics. So far, McHenry County has two mass vaccination clinics up and running: one at the former Kmart building in McHenry, where 3,000 vaccines are being doled out per day on average, and a new clinic in Crystal Lake at Willow Creek Church, where around 600 shots are going into residents arms daily.

The McHenry clinic has the capacity to vaccinate 9,000 people per day, Karras said. At Willow Creek, the hope is to get up to 800 vaccines per day. The county is waiting to get the OK to start distributing the Johnson & Johnson shot there.

Administration of the J&J shot was put on hold last week after the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration officials said they needed more evidence to decide if a handful of unusual blood clots were linked to the shot — and if so, how big the risk is.

The mortality rate is low here as well, and the recovery rate, which hung at 96 percent for months, is now at 99 percent. To date, 27,097 total cases of the coronavirus has been reported in the county since the start of the pandemic, and 272 have died from the virus.

Homebound Help: Getting Vaccines To Those Who Can't Get Out

Many counties are reserving the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccines for older and disabled residents who are unable to leave their homes and get to clinics or local pharmacies to receive their vaccine.

The hope is the OK will be given next week to again begin administering the vaccine.

Currently, McHenry County has more than 3,000 J&J shots in storage and ready to go. Karras said those who have mobility issues are still making it to clinics and, at times, requesting the vaccine to be brought and administered to them while they are in their cars.

Public health officials have made that happen.

"They are still seeking out a shot, they are still coming in," Karras said.

The McHenry County Department of Health is working with a physicians group to bring those J&J shots to the "truly" home bound, which she estimates may make up about 10 percent of the elderly population in the county.

MORE ON PATCH

• School Activities, Sports Tied To Recent COVID-19 Outbreaks
• Fauci Expects Johnson & Johnson Vaccine To Resume This Week