IDPH: More than 80 Illinois counties have expanded COVID-19 eligibility

More than 80 of Illinois’ 102 counties have expanded COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to all residents 16 and older, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported Monday.

The department announced last month it would authorize counties to use their “discretion” to expand eligibility if they saw signs of unfilled appointments for the current population eligible for vaccines. The state is set to expand eligibility to all Illinoisans 16 and older on April 12.

A total of 6,318,070 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, including 368,300 for long-term care facilities. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is approximately 105,779 doses, with 27,248 doses administered on Sunday. The department said some reporting by providers may be delayed due to Easter Sunday.

There have been 7,335,385 doses of COVID-19 vaccines delivered to Illinois providers, including in Chicago. An additional 448,830 doses have been allocated to the federal government’s Pharmacy Partnership Program for long-term care facilities.

Additionally, the state announced Monday it will expand its rural vaccination program to six counties this week.

Vaccination teams will be sent to Kankakee, Vermilion, Livingston, Coles, DeWitt and White counties this week, with the capacity to administer more than 8,000 single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

The program has vaccinated more than 4,700 people since it launched two weeks ago.

“These sites bring thousands of doses directly into the community, reducing transportation barriers and ensuring residents in all corners of Illinois have access to this life-saving vaccine,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement.

There were 2,102 new cases of COVID-19 reported on Monday, bringing the total to 1,258,736.

The state’s death toll is at 21,384 after 11 more deaths were reported on Monday.

The seven-day statewide positivity rate for cases as a percent of total tests is 3.8 percent, up 0.5 percent from last week. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity using the number of COVID-19 positive tests over total tests is 4.5 percent, a 0.7 percent increase from last week.

There were 59,586 tests processed over the past 24 hours. A total of 20,686,198 tests have been processed.

As of Sunday night, 1,581 Illinoisans were in the hospital with COVID-19, an increase of 229 from last week. Of the patients in the hospital this week, 358 were in the ICU and 159 patients were on ventilators, the latter up 31 from last week.

Thirty-three percent of Illinois’ 32,427 hospital beds were available as of Monday morning. Twenty-nine percent of the state’s 3,383 ICU beds were available as were 78 percent of the state’s 5,698 ventilators.