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* UPDATED x1 - Durbin clarifies * Durbin: Pritzker needs to pick up the vaccine pace

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* US Sen. Dick Durbin on WTTW…

While praising the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed in helping researchers develop a vaccine quickly, Durbin said “they did not follow through” with a vaccine distribution plan.

“When (Biden) became president there was more vaccine in the freezers than there was in the arms of Americans — we’re changing that,” he said.

He also said that although Gov. J.B. Pritzker was doing “a good job” of rolling out the vaccine in Illinois, more needs to be done and many Illinoisans have told him they’re frustrated by the slow pace of the distribution.

“It’s a hard job, but we’ve got to keep the pressure on him (Pritzker), he’s got to do more,” Durbin said. “We’ve got to have a better system of producing, distributing and actually injecting these vaccinations into the arms of people in Illinois.”

*** UPDATE *** From Sen. Durbin…

Thanks to Governor Pritzker’s leadership, Illinois was one of the first states to vaccinate one million residents, has prioritized an equitable distribution, and is among the very top states nationwide in getting vaccines in arms. As Gov. Pritzker continues to lead this challenging effort across our state, the federal government must keep its foot on the accelerator. That means we need to ramp up production, increase allocations for distribution, and provide more funding for the workforce, technology, and capacity to boost our rate of injections.

From securing tests and PPE to bolstering our hospital capacity and public health strategy, Governor Pritzker has guided Illinois through this pandemic with a steady hand and tough decision making. He has worked tirelessly to keep us safe from this deadly virus and ramp up our vaccination capability. When former-President Trump left office, more vaccines were in freezers than arms, and our states were grappling with no national plan and poor communication from federal agencies. We are all anxious to get this vaccine, and I will continue to work at the federal level to help provide Illinois with the resources we need to break the back of this pandemic. That starts by passing President Biden’s American Rescue Plan as soon as possible.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 10:38 am

Comments

Starting on 2/2/2021 the U of I Champaign campus is vaccinating 1,125 front line workers per day.

Comment by Gruntled University Employee Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 10:41 am
Part of the problem, especially in rural areas, may be the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine storage protocols. -80 freezers are hard to come by, and how close those facilities are to the vaccination site, how long the vaccine can be kept outside of the freezer before having to go into an arm, and probably some other factors, too. The one shot regimes, when they are available, should help. I am not defending those areas that may be sitting on vaccines, just pointing out some of the logistical issues with the current approved vaccines.

Comment by Anon221 Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 10:47 am
According to Bloomberg, we’re #7 in the US in daily doses administered.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

Comment by Chicago Cynic Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 10:49 am
How many times have Illinois politicians responded politely to Durbin while wanting to say, “Hey, Senator, stay in your lane”?

Comment by SouthSide Markie Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 10:54 am
He’s not wrong.

Comment by Cool Papa Bell Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:04 am
I guess Senator Durbin could always call JB and ask him what the issues are. They do know each other.

Comment by SSL Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:09 am
We’re about 6 weeks into the vaccine process. And we’re just barely passed 2 weeks from forming any semblance of a plan in the White House. Our prior President spent the month between vaccine availability and the inauguration airing grievances not focusing on the roll-out.

Things do seem to be ramping up having eclipsed over 60K vaccines yesterday. It wasn’t that long ago that we had a short-term testing goal of 10K a day and now we’re routinely over 100K. That’s not to say that this is going as well as it should. It’s just meant to provide some perspective.

Comment by Pundent Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:12 am
I’m fine with keeping pressure on the administration, but it’s hard for me to stomach criticism coming from Congress, regardless of party. Last I checked they still haven’t passed another relief package, so maybe Senator Durbin should focus a little more on the plank in his own eye.

Comment by Excitable Boy Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:14 am
== forming any semblance of a plan in the White House
This doesn’t explain why Illinois is behind @fifty other states and territories. Believe it or not they have the same Federal government.

Comment by midway gardens Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:16 am
What is causing the backlog for the COVID-19 vaccation? Nursing Homes?

Comment by Mama Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:17 am
===This doesn’t explain why Illinois is behind @fifty other states and territories===

In what?

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:18 am
Vaccinations not vaccation. Sorry

Comment by Mama Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:18 am
“This doesn’t explain why Illinois is behind @fifty other states and territories. Believe it or not they have the same Federal government.”

We’re not. We’re #7 in daily vaccinations.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

Comment by Chicago Cynic Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:22 am
Changing the rules about who has priority to be vaccinated and when about every week isn’t helping the process move along.

Comment by Behind the Scenes Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:34 am
In general I don’t think it is appropriate for Senator Durbin to be passing the buck on this issue to Governor Pritzker. That statement was an easy deflection of criticize to something that is easy to criticize for data that can be easily manipulated to doing a bad job.

A nice sports analogy would be using the 1st 5 minutes of the 1st quarter of an NFL football game as the metric for deciding which team has “failed” at football when the game isn’t even remotely close to being over.

Senator Durbin is buying into a GOP sentiment in which the plan was to call the vaccine roll out slow, delayed, and a failure regardless of how well it goes and regardless of how Illinois compares to other states while simultaneously ignoring the bottleneck that was created by relying on private for profit partners to help with the program that did not bother staffing up or training staff to administrate doses of the vaccine allocated for their participation.

If blaming the Governor for a “problem” that doesn’t really exist and pressuring the Governor to do something that already has a significant amount of attention was an intentional messaging decision by Senator Durbin, I hope he is prepared to have his entire senate career deemed a failure when he participates in surrendering every important legislative agenda to a well heeled turtle and his band of angry rich white insurrectionists.

Perhaps pressure should be placed on Senator Durbin to not let the minority representation of our country govern. But that’s a different conversation. I am disappointed in Senator Durbin’s decision to pile on to complaints made by the likes of the Eastern Bloc, so I hope this was an accidental slight.

Comment by Candy Dogood Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:45 am
When you look at any of the major vaccine trackers NY Times, WaPo - or the one I have settled on, Bloomberg, Illinois is consistently in the bottom tier for doses delivered per 100/population. It makes no sense to say Illinois is a top tier for doses delivered. Cook County has a greater population than some states. Compare to peer population states, say Ohio or Pennsylvania. We are behind in the percentage of population vaccinated.

Comment by Banish Misfortune Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:46 am
To the Update:

Obviously someone in Durbin’s staff realized the Senator had said something he didn’t mean to say. My comment acknowledge that is just as effective at removing his criticism of Pritzker from the political arena as my comment about the update is at removing my reference to his rolling over to a well heeled turtle.

Comment by Candy Dogood Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 11:51 am
Nice update. It was an odd comment because it implied something I don’t think Durbin meant to imply. The update is a much clearer and more accurate statement.

Comment by Chicago Cynic Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 12:01 pm
==If blaming the Governor for a “problem” that doesn’t really exist ….==

We can waltz around whether it is fair to blame the governor, or how much to blame the governor’s office for all the frustrated and deserving Illinoisans who can’t seem to get shots. But to write as if there is no “problem” with the vaccine rollout is a problem itself. There most certainly is a problem and it will never get the attention it deserves if people in government do not acknowledge that.

Comment by Responsa Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 12:07 pm
Somebody called someone.

Comment by Ferris Wheeler Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 12:55 pm
Durbin should learn to fact check his mouth before he opens it.

Comment by jimbo26 Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 1:12 pm
===We’re not. We’re #7 in daily vaccinations.===

Nice stat, but we’re in the bottom 7 per capita. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations

Comment by Citizen Kane Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 1:23 pm
=There most certainly is a problem=

Did you think it was going to happen overnight? From the word go, it was going to take time. Illinois continues to vaccinate more people each day, ramping up the effort on our own.

SImply put, Illinois has vaccinated more people than 43 other states per capita or percentage or not. More than 43 other states.

Comment by JS Mill Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 1:34 pm
Citizen Kane is right. It doesn’t matter what the total doses administered is, what matters is the per capita doses administered. And as of yesterday, on the CDC’s website, we were the #44 state. That is not acceptable. And the pressure needs to continue to be put on Pritzker to speed it up.

Comment by Smalls Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 2:05 pm
No one seems to care about younger people who have serious health issues that put them at a high risk for death if they contract COVID.

Comment by RIJ Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 2:08 pm
I take issue with the politically motivated meme that the rollout is failing. We simply lack enough vaccine to do much more than we currently do. No matter the result, Republicans will complain as if they were actually interested in public health in the first place.

Comment by Jibba Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 2:28 pm
The fact that we are at the bottom in per capita vaccinations- 1,108,275, despite being shipped 1,986,275 doses is clearly the Trump administrations fault

Comment by Lucky Pierre Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 2:34 pm
Someone got in trouble…oops.

Pritzker: “I would re-word your comments, think re-election bucks”

Comment by Pizza Man Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 4:55 pm
Depending on what measure you use—IL isn’t doing as well.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html

Comment by ChiSox Thursday, Feb 4, 21 @ 9:19 pm