Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday said Illinois shouldn’t have a problem meeting President Joe Biden’s May 1 deadline for opening up vaccine eligibility to all adults.
“I am confident that not just by May 1 but maybe even a little bit earlier we could open up to everyone in the state, everyone that’s eligible,” Pritzker said during an event at Loretto Hospital on Chicago’s West Side.
Current state guidelines limit eligibility for vaccinations to health care workers, people 65 and older, front-line workers in places such as schools and grocery stores, and people under 65 with certain preexisting health conditions that put them at greater risk for severe COVID-19 symptoms.
The city of Chicago and some other local health departments haven’t followed the state’s lead in opening up vaccinations to people younger than 65, though Chicago officials have said they hope to expand eligibility later this month.
Pritzker said he thinks the state can make the vaccine accessible to a wider range of people because the Biden administration so far has lived up to its promises to increase shipments of doses to the states.
“I feel very confident moving forward that supplies are increasing, that the president is doing everything he can to get us there,” the governor said.
As of Thursday, the state had received more than 4.9 million vaccine doses, up from nearly 4.3 million doses a week earlier.
Illinois public health officials said Friday that another 110,570 coronavirus vaccine doses were administered on Thursday, bringing the statewide total to 3,791,273.
The number of Illinois residents who have been fully vaccinated — receiving both of the required shots — reached 1,369,534, or 10.75% of the total population. Over the past seven days, the state averaged 95,121 vaccines administered daily.
As the number of available vaccine doses increases, the state on Friday launched a call center to help residents find appointments to get vaccinated. Residents can call 833-621-1284 for help navigating appointment-booking websites or to schedule an appointment by phone.
The call center has 500 agents, some of whom speak Spanish, and is open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to midnight. Translation into other languages is available. There may be wait times when call volume is high, but the state plans to add callback service.
Also Friday, U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin announced 26 Illinois community health centers will join a federal vaccine program.
Thirteen Chicago centers and 13 others in Springfield, Rockford and elsewhere will receive vaccines directly from the federal government through the third round of the Federally Qualified Health Center Program. FQHCs are designated medical providers that serve disadvantaged populations.
The 26 health centers will be eligible to receive doses “over the coming weeks,” joining nine Illinois centers that became eligible last month through the second round of the program.
Equity in health care during the pandemic has been a major theme for Pritzker, who was joined at Loretto Hospital on Friday by a bipartisan group of lawmakers for the signing of a bill creating a new $150 million-per-year program to fund local collaborations aimed at reducing disparities in health care.
The hospital transformation program, which will be funded through state and federal Medicaid money, is designed to give local providers a role in crafting new approaches to address gaps in health care, supporters said.
State Rep. Greg Harris, a Chicago Democrat who sponsored the legislation in the House, said lawmakers had already been working on a transformation plan when the coronavirus struck.
When lawmakers met for a brief emergency session last spring, Harris said, “we were just starting to get our arms around the fact that some communities suffered far, far more than others, that there was death and disease that impacted some of our neighbors far more than maybe others.
“We knew we had to put aside all the work we had done and start over to be sure that as we made these plans, we were really addressing the disparities that were highlighted by COVID.”
The final package was approved in January during the legislature’s lame-duck session with support from Democrats and Republicans.
“The fact that we were able to pass a bill with such strong bipartisan support and to see that bill become law today is one of the most exciting things I’ve been a part of in my time in Springfield,” said Rep. Tom Demmer, a Dixon Republican.
Also Friday, officials reported 1,763 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 39 additional fatalities. The total number of known infections in Illinois since the start of the pandemic is 1,206,172, and the statewide death toll is 20,901.
The seven-day statewide positivity rate for cases as a share of total tests was 2.3% as of Thursday. Friday’s new cases resulted from a batch of 93,913 tests.
As of Thursday night, 1,178 people in Illinois were hospitalized with COVID-19, with 240 patients in intensive care units and 108 patients on ventilators.