* NPR…
After a year of grim milestones, Sunday marked a hopeful statistic in America’s fight against the coronavirus. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of all American adults have now gotten at least one vaccine dose.
After months of limited vaccine availability, every adult in the country will be eligible to sign up for vaccination on Monday. The only remaining states still with certain adult age restrictions — Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont — will open vaccine registration to all people age 16 and older, meeting a federal deadline for all adults to be eligible set earlier this month.
About 130 million adults have gotten at least one vaccine dose, the CDC reported Sunday. And 84 million, or about a third of all adults, are fully vaccinated. (The CDC considers people “fully vaccinated” if they have received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.) The U.S. has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
The CDC says 50.4 percent of Americans 18+ have received at least their first dose.
* Press release…
The City of Chicago has reached a milestone in its vaccine rollout with 50% of Chicago adults having received a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. About four times as many Chicagoans have now received a first dose of vaccine as have ever been diagnosed with COVID. The vaccine numbers – more than a million Chicagoans and another almost 350,000 non-Chicago residents who have received the vaccine – is equivalent to the number of regular vaccines the City would administer in three years.
The City has officially moved into Phase 2 of COVID-19 vaccine eligibility today, meaning all Chicagoans age 16 or older are eligible to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Anyone 16+ living in the City of Chicago can look for vaccine appointments at zocdoc.com/vaccine or use the City’s COVID-19 Vaccine Finder to identify additional vaccine providers. For Zocdoc, Chicagoans under 18 must have a parent or guardian book vaccine appointments on their behalf.
The governor’s office says that 53 percent of 18+ Illinoisans have received at least their first shot. 50 percent of Illinoisans 16+ have had at least one shot.
Just remember, though, that a member of Gov. Pritzker’s own staff who had received their first shot contracted COVID. Unless you got the J&J, one ain’t done.
* Speaking of Johnson and Johnson…
The nationwide pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine is likely to end by Friday, Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, said in a series of interviews on Sunday.
“By Friday, we should have an answer as to where we’re going with it,” Fauci said on ABC News’s “This Week.” “I would think that we’re not going to go beyond Friday in the extension of this pause.”
* Back to vaccines. According to IDPH, 26.14 percent of all Illinoisans (3,330,480 people) are fully vaccinated. That’s a tiny bit above the national rate of 25.4 percent, according to the CDC.
But we’ll eventually get to a plateau if current trends hold…
The disparity in vaccination rates has so far mainly broken down along political lines. The New York Times examined survey and vaccine administration data for nearly every U.S. county and found that both willingness to receive a vaccine and actual vaccination rates to date were lower, on average, in counties where a majority of residents voted to re-elect former President Donald J. Trump in 2020. The phenomenon has left some places with a shortage of supply and others with a glut.
As we discussed Friday, this is happening in Illinois.
* Meanwhile, this sort of fraudulent behavior is gonna increase demand for vaccine passports…
Brenden Moore…
Several private companies have started developing vaccine passport apps that can be downloaded on smartphones. And in late March, New York became the first state to launch a free, voluntary vaccine passport available to all the state’s residents.
In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been relatively mum on the issue. When asked by reporters in March, he said that he likes the idea “that everybody will have with them easily on their device some way to show that they’ve been vaccinated.”
“Look, your friends, your neighbors, we all want to get together,” Pritzker said. “You may also want to show each other that ‘hey, it’s okay, we can take our masks off … as the CDC has allowed, as long as the group of people getting together have all been vaccinated.”
Pritzker said “there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it’s your choice,” but said that a vaccine passport should not be required to enter an event.
* Related…
* Illinois’ COVID-19 vaccine total surpasses 8 million as Chicago set to expand eligibility to all adults Monday
* Hundreds of CPS students and staff are in quarantine, but as high schools reopen, COVID-19 cases remain isolated in the district so far
* As cases rise, health authorities urge younger people to get vaccinated
* COVID-19 vaccine and Chicago sports: Who has received it? What are they saying about it? And how does it affect fan attendance?
- DKelley40thWard@reagan.com - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 11:48 am:
Looking forward to getting my second vaccine shot this week!
- JoanP - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 12:29 pm:
I hope that pharmacist loses his license.
- Crash - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 12:32 pm:
On the pharmacist issue, I wonder if he’s selling the cards or if he is giving fake vaccinations.
I’m glad I got my vaccinations through a well known hospital. It leaves little doubt that it was done correctly.
- PublicServant - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 12:44 pm:
=== I hope that pharmacist loses his license. ===
And gets bigtime jail time.
- harp5339 - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 1:35 pm:
If a friend demands to see proof of my vaccine on an app instead of just taking my word for it, I’ll need to re-evaluate that friendship.
Went to the drive-through FEMA vax site in Gary yesterday morning, had a shot in my arm within 5 minutes. The place is run with military precision, not surprising since it’s manned by troops including a cute bulldog wearing a camo molle vest.
I’ve never been so happy to get an injection in my entire life, why can’t all vaccine needles be that tiny?
- Rich Miller - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 1:36 pm:
===If a friend demands ===
That ain’t about friends.
===why can’t all vaccine needles be that tiny? ===
I concur. I barely felt my second shot and I hate needles.
- cermak_rd - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 1:40 pm:
I am so relieved to be fully vacced now. I am counting down the days to when I am fully immune so I can get out and about and do simple errands (get my horns maintained, do the grocery, liquor, and hardware shopping myself), maybe take in an outdoor concert or two.
- cermak_rd - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 1:43 pm:
Isn’t it a felony to forge a federal document? I would think the CDC cards fall in that category. No different from an SS Card. I would imagine the penalty for that would be enough that most people would not feel comfortable doing it. Remember, all the information on your card is in a database if you actually got a real shot (they looked me up in a computer for my 2nd since it was at CCDPH vs. CDPH for the first) so these cards can be verified by computer.
- Cool Papa Bell - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 1:46 pm:
==why can’t all vaccine needles be that tiny? ===
Few years ago received a number of vaccines to travel to Asia… and holy cow a few of them used a larger gauge needle and some felt like molasses being plunged in.. After that every day vaccines have been a cake walk.
- DuPage Dem - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 2:01 pm:
I have to say as a public service to all of those people who, like me, have a mortal terror of needles - Rich and company above are right, you can barely feel the vaccine needle. It was honestly even better than getting a flu shot which is not bad at all.
- Grandson of Man - Monday, Apr 19, 21 @ 2:45 pm:
In terms of the South Africa variant and the Pfizer vaccine, the Israel study was revised to show that the vaccine worked 14 days or more after the second shot. That is the guideline for when full vaccination occurs for Pfizer (day 14 after shot #2). The infections first reported in the study happened from day a week to 13 days after the second shot. Caveat: the study was small and not conclusive, but perhaps indicative of how important it is to follow vaccine guidelines.