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“There should definitely be another way,” Rahman said. “Everyone just needs to get on the same page to figure out how to effectively provide the vaccine to all the people in group 1B.”
Sangamon County moved to the second priority group for COVID-19 vaccines last week, which includes teachers and other essential workers like first responders and grocery workers, in addition to seniors over 65. The rest of Illinois starts this “Phase 1B” on Monday.
Sangamon County’s health department estimates that nearly 49,000 of its residents qualify in this new phase of the vaccine rollout. But many have run into the same hurdles when trying to schedule an appointment.
COVID-19 has killed 107 more people and required more than 3,200 people to remain hospitalized statewide, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported Wednesday.
One new death, a Sangamon County woman in her 70s who tested positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 17, was reported by the county s department of public health.
At least 537,740 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered from the 1.38 million doses shipped to Illinois thus far, department officials said.
The rolling, seven-day average of COVID-19 vaccines administered each day is 21,869 doses.
The newly reported deaths bring total COVID-19-related fatalities statewide to 18,398. And 4,822 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday brought the total number of cases to 1,081,354, officials said.
The slow distribution of vaccines nationally is causing a slow rollout in Sangamon County as vaccine providers are ready to move to the next phase of vaccination.
At HSHS St. John s Hospital in Springfield, a member of the Hospital Sisters Health System group, vaccine distribution is on hold because the hospital has used up its allotment.
Dr. Marc Shelton of St. John s said they were able to get through Phase 1a of vaccination, which provided vaccines to employees of the hospital. With the few leftovers they had, some patients in Phase 1b, frontline workers and people over age 65, who were already members of the hospital s patient system, were invited to get vaccinated.
As students at Ball Charter, school board member Micah Miller s daughters continue to learn from home. Micah Miller is one of the three District 186 school board members to consistently vote for schools to remain remote. Whichever position parents, teachers, administrators or board members take – it s a controversial one. While just about any in-person activity comes with a risk to health these days, Springfield serves many low-income and at-risk students who need extra help. More than 300 days after students were first told to stay home via state mandate – in March of last year – some Springfield Public Schools students returned to class through the hybrid plan. About 44% of students enrolled in the hybrid option in Springfield. They are split into two groups, each of which go to classes in-person two days per week.