Coronavirus Vaccine News: Illinois public health officials have reduced coronavirus restrictions in a southwest region that includes Monroe and Clinton counties Thursday. This means that the entire state is now under the same rules that were put in place this summer under Phase Four of Governor J.B. Pritzker’s reopening plan.
Chicago and Cook County met the state’s guidelines for this level of relaxed restrictions earlier this week, but officials chose to keep some rules in place that are more stringent than state guidelines, including tighter crowd limits for restaurants and social gatherings.
Meanwhile, Illinois is diverting 97,000 coronavirus vaccine doses away from a federal partnership with pharmacies that are overseeing vaccinations in nursing homes and making those shots available to people 65 and older, and front-line essential workers, state health officials said Wednesday. It is unclear what effect this coronavirus vaccine news will have on the overall vaccine rollout.
Walgreens and CVS have been criticized by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and officials in other states, concerning the pharmacy’s federal partnerships for moving too slowly to vaccinate residents and staff at nursing homes and other care facilities nationwide.
Health care providers are ramping up first doses and preparing to administer second doses for the phase 1b recipients, and are working on the logistics of signing up patients for appointments in the proper time frame, helping to ensure patients come to their appointments and carefully tracking inventory to be sure second doses are on hand.
Additionally, Illinois state officials reported that 65,166 vaccinations were administered on Tuesday, a new record. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 45,787 doses.
Additional coronavirus vaccine news can be found using the following links:
COVID-19 cases in Illinois by ZIP code: Search for your neighborhood
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