Vaccine close, but Pritzker warns coronavirus precautions are still key: ‘All I can say is that the virus is deadly’

As Illinois’ coronavirus numbers took another step in the right direction Tuesday, Gov J.B. Pritzker touted the promising early reviews of the COVID-19 vaccine that could start being administered to health care workers across the state as early as next week.

But with daily death counts stuck in the triple digits and a potential post-Thanksgiving spike still looming, the governor warned against complacency in the face of the deadly virus — even with the vaccine in sight.

Once the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives emergency use authorization to the Pfizer vaccine as expected Thursday, an independent state panel will also have to sign off for distribution in Illinois. But the governor’s health team made clear that the first shipment of the 95%-effective inoculation will be cast across Illinois in short order.

“Illinois will only distribute a vaccine that is deemed safe, and we are one of many states that have established additional review panels,” Pritzker said. “We all want to make sure this vaccine is safe, and additional sets of eyes on the evidence can only be helpful.”

Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike went a step further, saying “we are hoping for everyone to get this vaccine in the coming year.”

It’ll take a while to get to all of the state’s roughly 12.7 million residents, not to mention the “anti-vax community that has pre-existed coronavirus,” Pritzker said.

Illinois is in line to get 109,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine from the federal government within a few days of its anticipated approval Thursday. The state could also receive an additional 400,000 doses of the competing Moderna vaccine by the end of December, though that estimate is much murkier as it’s a few weeks behind in the process compared to Pfizer, Pritzker said.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file

First in line are the state’s 655,000 health care workers in Illinois, including 162,000 in Chicago. After that come the roughly 110,000 Illinoisans living in long-term care facilities, about 16,000 in Chicago.

By the time the state’s essential workers and older residents with underlying health conditions are vaccinated, it’ll be well into 2021 before a majority of Illinois residents are able to receive it.

That’s why “we still are going to need to wear our masks. We still are going to need to limit our gatherings and watch our distance,” Ezike said.

The state is still in the midst of its worst stretch of the entire pandemic in terms of fatalities, as officials announced the latest 145 coronavirus deaths and 7,910 new infections statewide.

Those figures are slightly below average for the state compared to the brutal past seven days, during which COVID-19 has claimed an average of about 157 lives and infected more than 9,300 people every day.

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But the latest cases were diagnosed among 95,825 tests, lowering the statewide average positivity rate to 9.9%. That’s the first time that key indicator of transmission has dipped below 10% in a month.

Hospital numbers have trended slightly downward, too, since reaching record highs over the last two weeks of November. As of Monday night, 5,199 coronavirus patients were hospitalized statewide, with 1,071 receiving intensive care and 626 using ventilators.

Pritzker is pleading for residents not to let down their guard due to these modest signs of potential progress.

“I cheer when the numbers are coming down, of course, but when you have an average of 150 people dying a day … am I supposed to feel good about that?” Pritzker said. “I don’t. All I can say is that the virus is deadly.”

And officials are still bracing for infections to rebound after Thanksgiving. Experts will have a better idea of how much transmission increased at holiday gatherings by the end of this week, which marks one full 14-day viral incubation period since Nov. 26.

Numbers already have been ticking up since then in Chicago, where the average positivity rate has jumped a full percentage point to 12.6%.

Since March, about 11.3 million coronavirus tests have been administered in Illinois, with more than 804,000 people testing positive and 13,487 of them dying. The recovery rate for those who contract the virus is 97%.