COVID-19 Vaccination Locator Launched As Illinois Begins Phase 1b
CHICAGO — Illinois launched a website Monday showing locations of coronavirus vaccination sites as the state enters the first week of Phase 1b, the second phase of its COVID-19 vaccination plan.
All residents over the age of 65 and certain front-line workers are included in the second priority group. That includes more than 3.2 million Illinoisans, who will join health care workers and nursing home residents and staff, who have been eligible since the start of the vaccination program.
Searchable by ZIP code or city, the state’s new vaccine locator provides links to the appointment booking websites of Illinois’ 97 local health departments and participating pharmacies.
As of Monday, Walgreens began providing appointments at 92 locations across the state, and Jewel-Osco is scheduled to begin Tuesday, according to the governor’s office.
More pharmacies will begin offering vaccinations over the next few days, as well as additional sites operated by local health departments and sites staffed by the Illinois National Guard, according to the governor’s office. They will offer hundreds of locations in every region of the state.
Currently, vaccinations are available by appointment only. State public health officials plan to launch expanded sites and walk-in locations as the federal government distributes more vaccine to the state.
“As federal supply is currently limited and every state in the nation is facing a shortage, I urge all eligible Illinoisans to check back regularly for available appointments — and in the meantime, mask up, keep our distance, wash our hands, and remember we’ll stay healthy and safe if we look out for each other,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a statement announcing the launch of the site locator.
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Illinois Vaccination Site Locator
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Speaking Monday in Tinley Park at the opening of the state’s first mass vaccination site in suburban Cook County, Pritzker said appointees in the Biden administration told him they had been “left with nothing,” in terms of a vaccine distribution plan, from the outgoing administration.
“One of the things that [the Trump Administration] did was they created this federal pharmacy partnership program with two large pharmacy companies to do all the vaccinations at our nursing homes, at our various assisted living facilities,” he said.
“That program has gone exceedingly slow and the federal government required that the number of vaccines be taken out of our entire allotment,” he said. “All the vaccinations that are necessary for that entire group have been taken out already of our allotment, and they sit on shelves because that federal pharmacy partnership is so slow on the job.”
According to the Illinois Department of Public Health website, the state has set aside more than 550,000 of the 1.66 million doses it has received for Walgreens and CVS to administer to nursing homes.
According to vaccination statistics provided by Walgreens and CVS, the Pritzker administration set a Jan. 25 activation date for clinics in assisted living facilities in Illinois outside of Chicago, which activated the program on Dec. 28 for both skilled nursing and assisted living locations. Both companies said they were on track to complete the first dose at all interested skilled nursing facilities by the end of the day Monday.
Pritzker noted that Illinois was sixth in the nation in overall number of vaccines distributed. As of Monday, data from the CDC also showed Illinois in last place among the 10 largest states in terms of doses administered per 100,000 people, although it was second only to Michigan among the 10 most populous states in the percentage of its population to have received both doses.
This article originally appeared on the Across Illinois Patch