* Tribune…

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday said she plans to fully reopen the city of Chicago with no capacity limits by July 4, potentially opening the door to bigger events and festivals if the city continues to see progress in its COVID-19 numbers. […]

Lightfoot’s plan may sound optimistic, but if current trends hold, the state could move to full reopening under Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s revised plan by early-to-mid June.

* Daily Herald…

“The trends are encouraging, but we must be cautious as we move forward,” said Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “As more venues reopen, it is critical that we increase the number of people who are vaccinated. Immunity is how we stop transmission of this virus, but we need greater community immunity and that requires as many of us as possible getting vaccinated as soon as possible.”

* CTU…

The CTU won an agreement with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s hand-picked board of education in early April to provide vaccinations to high school students and their vulnerable family members. Thousands of those students and family members hail from precisely the Black and Brown neighborhoods that have been most disproportionately hammered by COVID-19 sickness and death — and which continue to struggle to access shots through the Mayor’s ‘hunger games’ approach to vaccine access. Yet CPS has dragged on implementing the program — and rank and file educators are demanding that the mayor’s CPS management team begin working immediately with the Union to get the vaccination program up and running for students and school communities.

* WaPo…

The White House on Tuesday told states that coronavirus vaccine supply they leave unordered will become available to other states — the most significant shift in domestic vaccine distribution since President Biden took office, and part of an effort to account for flagging demand in parts of the country.

* WBEZ…

Three months after Chicago began administering the COVID-19 vaccine to police officers, data from the Chicago Police Department show that only about a quarter of department employees have gotten at least one shot at a city-run site.

The department insists those numbers may be artificially low because they aren’t tracking officers who received the vaccine outside of city-hosted vaccination sites. But in January, the department asked officers if they were interested in getting vaccinated against COVID-19; 38% responded that they were. Since the start of the pandemic, police report more than 3,200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the department.

* ABC7…

“I think officers are no different than the general population, there is a skepticism. There are unanswered questions when it comes to the vaccine, it rolled out in record time,” said Chicago Fraternal Order of Police president John Catanzara.

Catanzara said there is definitely hesitancy among the rank and file, and admitted he has not yet gotten vaccinated against COVID-19.

“No hurry,” he said. “Some people say I’m too mean to get the virus.”

Gee. Such a surprise.

* Daily Herald…

[Dr. Michael Bauer, medical director at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital] noted that Israel experienced a dive in COVID-19 infections after the country reached the 40% to 50% range of fully vaccinated residents. “They saw a precipitous drop in the numbers and once they hit 60% they really lowered,” he said.

Get your shots.

* Tribune…

Three major retail pharmacy chains — Walgreens, Walmart and Sam’s Club — are offering COVID-19 vaccinations to people who walk into their stores without appointments.

* The county is at 7.3 percent positivity and rising…

New cases of the coronavirus rose 25% in Winnebago County last week. There were also nine deaths from the virus, which is more than the previous three weeks combined.

* Lastly…

I made a gif. 😬 pic.twitter.com/Vh5rr6MLuV

— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe) May 1, 2021