As of Tuesday, 269,625 doses of vaccine had been delivered to Illinois, not including the share that went directly to the city of Chicago.
The state’s next allotment of vaccine is expected to be delivered “on a rolling basis” this week and Monday, according to the governor’s office.
However, the U.S. goal of getting initial COVID-19 vaccine doses to 20 million Americans by year’s end is looking like a long shot.
The Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initially promised to unleash a vast stockpile of 300 million vaccine doses by January but later slashed its target and said it hoped to get about 40 million doses to recipients by the end of the year.
The CDC reported Tuesday that only 11.45 million doses had been distributed since Dec. 13, with only about 2.1 million doses actually administered.
Here’s what’s happening Wednesday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:
4:25 p.m.: Plan to reopen CPS schools ‘doesn’t have anything to do with vaccination,’ Chicago health commissioner says, though teachers slated for shots in coming months
Chicago Public Schools teachers and staff won’t be vaccinated against the coronavirus before buildings are due to reopen for in-person classes, but eventually school nurses will help administer the inoculations.
Teachers, along with other groups considered front-line essential workers, are slated to be in the second phase of vaccination, after the first-priority rollout for health care employees and long-term care facility residents and workers that began this month.
Chicago’s public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, said Wednesday that teacher vaccinations could potentially begin in March or late February at the earliest. That’s after the scheduled resumption of in-person classes in CPS, which is Jan. 11 for pre-kindergarten and some special educations and Feb. 1 for most kindergarten through eighth graders, unless they opt for continued remote learning. The first group of teachers are expected to report to schools on Monday.
But Arwady, when asked during the online Q and A why CPS planned to bring staff and students back before staff members are vaccinated, said the decision “doesn’t have anything to do with vaccination.” Read more here. — Alice Yin and Elyssa Cherney
1:43 p.m.: Timeline: How COVID-19 upended the Chicago-area restaurant industry — and how it fought back.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, it ushered in a year of uncertainty, fear and struggle that spanned industries, income brackets and communities.
Restaurants across the state were forced to pivot repeatedly, with hundreds laying off employees and eventually closing because of the mounting expenses and a lack of governmental aid that never really came. Some found new ways of operating or introduced new concepts they hoped would align better with the shift to takeout and delivery that became a lifeline for beloved culinary institutions in the Chicago area.
As 2020 draws to a close, we look back at the past nine months and how the pandemic affected restaurants, bars and breweries. While it’s still unclear what 2021 will bring, the lessons of 2020 will remain important for some time to come.
1:28 p.m.: Aetna drops Walgreens from its Medicaid plan, making it harder for low-income Chicagoans to get their prescriptions during the pandemic
Critics say the decision is hitting poor and majority-Black neighborhoods on the South and West sides hard at a time when residents are already disproportionately suffering from COVID-19 and unemployment.
“It’s really pathetic,” state Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, said of Aetna’s decision. “It’s an attack not just on Black people, but on those that are struggling during the pandemic.”
In a written statement, Aetna responded that it has nearly 2,000 in-network pharmacies statewide for Medicaid members, including independent pharmacies and those in national and regional chains such as Walmart and Jewel-Osco.
12:10 p.m.: 7,374 new confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases and 178 additional deaths reported
Illinois health officials on Wednesday announced 7,374 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 178 additional fatalities, bringing the total number of known infections in Illinois to 955,380 and the statewide death toll to 16,357 since the start of the pandemic.
Officials also reported 74,573 new tests in the last 24 hours. The seven-day statewide rolling positivity rate for cases as a share of total tests was 7.6% for the period ending Tuesday.
11:45 a.m.: Illinois reports 126,211 COVID-19 vaccinations administered throughout the state
By the end of the day Monday, 126,211 COVID-19 vaccinations had been given throughout Illinois, as the state began the third week of its mass immunization effort, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office.
As of Tuesday, 269,625 doses of vaccine had been delivered to Illinois, not including the share that went directly to the city of Chicago.
This week, 21,450 Pfizer doses and 16,200 Moderna doses were shipped to the city, public health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said in a Wednesday virtual Q&A.
Arwady underscored that there is no concern the vaccine will expire before use, given that they have about a six-month shelf life and are being distributed within days. What will really determine efficient roll-out, she said, is more allocation.
6:05 a.m.: UK approves use of 2nd COVID-19 vaccine with easier storage
Britain on Wednesday became the first country to authorize an easy-to-handle COVID-19 vaccine whose developers hope it will become the “vaccine for the world.” The approval and a shift in policy that will speed up rollout of the vaccine in the U.K. comes as a surge in infections threatens to swamp British hospitals.
The Department of Health said it had accepted a recommendation from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to authorize emergency use of the vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca.
Britain has bought 100 million doses of the vaccine. Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.K. have already received a different vaccine, made by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and German firm BioNTech.
Partial results from studies in almost 24,000 people in Britain, Brazil and South Africa suggest the shots are safe and about 70% effective for preventing illness from coronavirus infection.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to be relied on in many countries because of its low cost, availability and ease of use. It can be kept in refrigerators rather than the ultra-cold storage some other vaccines require. The company has said it will sell it for $2.50 a dose and plans to make up to 3 billion doses by the end of 2021.
A decision on the vaccine is further off in the United States, where the Food and Drug Administration is waiting for data from a separate clinical trial. The study was halted in September and delayed for nearly seven weeks — much longer than in other countries — as regulators investigated whether an illness in a participant in Britain was related to the vaccine. American regulators ultimately allowed the trial to proceed.
6 a.m.: New year brings new laws, but fewer of them, thanks to the pandemic
One of the side effects of the coronavirus pandemic was a drastically shortened spring session of the General Assembly, which means far fewer laws taking effect on New Year’s Day than in a typical year.
Only about a half-dozen new state laws and policies take effect Jan. 1. A year earlier, more than 250 new laws took effect, including the landmark legalization of recreational marijuana.
Nonetheless, some of the new laws will have a significant effect on people’s lives.
Here are some recent stories related to COVID-19:
Source by www.chicagotribune.com
