58% Of Skokie Seniors Have Had At Least One COVID-19 Vaccine Dose

SKOKIE, IL — One in three Skokie adults and more than half of village residents over age 65 had, as of Sunday, received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, village officials said.

Citing data provided by the Illinois Department of Public Health, Skokie Health and Human Services Director Mike Charley said more than 9,700 people — 16 percent of Skokie residents — had been fully vaccinated, and that nearly 16,500 residents — over a quarter of the village's population — had received at least one dose.

"The good news is, that's 58 percent of residents 65 and above — a key demographic, because we know people 65 and above have a far greater risk of dying from this disease," Charley said. "So we're going to continue as much as possible to encourage those members of our community at 65 and above to get that vaccine."

The village health department, one of four certified municipal departments in suburban Cook County and one of nearly 100 across the state, has moved through most of the over 20,000 people who had preregistered as members of the Phase 1b priority group, its director told trustees at Monday's village board meeting.

"The next phase is actually going to be Phase 1b, tier two, and we're getting pretty close to that on our list," Charley said. "So we've almost invited everyone on our [Phase] 1b, part one, to register for our clinics, which is really good news because we're going to get to that next group which is 18 to 64 with underlying health conditions."

In suburban Cook County as a whole, 52.81 percent of seniors have received at least one vaccine dose and 12.47 percent of residents have been fully vaccinated, compared to 12.27 percent of the state's population, according to IDPH data updated Tuesday.

Skokie residents have received 6,329 first doses and 5,618 second doses through village-run local clinics at 7700 Frontage Road, which would be capable of administering 210 jabs per hour if there were sufficient supply, the health director said.

"We have been operating our clinics on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, but again the limitation is the number of doses we're getting," he said. "Like this week, we're only operating [Tuesday] and Wednesday because we just don't have enough doses to go to a third day at this point. If we did have enough doses we would go to Thursday or Friday."

Charley said he expected private pharmacy retailers — like Walgreens, CVS, Jewel-Osco and Walmart — to continue to receive increased supplies of vaccine.

That trend builds on the present practice of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of allocating vaccine doses to the Illinois Department of Public Health, which then allocates supplies to local public health departments and health care providers.

"So instead of the state providing the vaccine, the federal government is shipping directly to those businesses so we can push out vaccine even faster," Charley said. "I'm hopeful — although I think we're doing an awesome job — I'm hoping that with the vaccine doses increasing, it being distributed more widely, it's more accessible to people, and that we share the load. And, sooner than later, most people will have easy access to vaccine doses."

Skokie village staff recently helped find a use for 400 extra doses of Pfizer vaccine that had already been thawed and were at risk of expiring, according to the health director.

Village officials had been administering doses of the Moderna vaccine and did not have any Pfizer vaccine clinics scheduled, Charley explained, so health department representatives contacted local health care providers and found St. Francis Hospital in Evanston had a Pfizer clinic already scheduled for the following day.

"They could use those doses the next day — the day they were delivered — so they ended up using those doses," he said. "We certainly wouldn't have wanted them to go to waste."