Coronavirus live blog, Jan. 28, 2021: Nearly 830,000 shots administered as Illinois enters Phase 1B of distribution plan

For the second day in a row, Illinois broke its record of daily COVID vaccine injections given.

Here’s what else went on in Chicago and around the state.

News

8:55 p.m. Nearly 56,000 more vaccinated as Illinois coronavirus death toll passes 19,000

Ashlee Rezin Garcia /Chicago Sun-Times

Illinois set a record for a second straight day Wednesday with 55,865 people receiving COVID-19 vaccinations statewide, public health officials reported Thursday.

That tops the 53,628 shots that were doled out Tuesday, as vaccine administration ramps up this week entering Phase 1B of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s distribution plan.

A total of 829,428 shots have gone into arms statewide in the six weeks since the federal government shipped out the first doses six weeks ago — but only 178,684 Illinoisans have received the required two doses. That’s just 1.4% of the population.

Pritzker has urged patience for the 3.2 million essential workers and people 65 or older who are now eligible to receive shots, but he said efforts will be bolstered with $43 million in new federal funding and a 16% increase in weekly vaccine deliveries promised by President Joe Biden’s administration.

“We’re expanding our vaccination capability across the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said after touring a vaccination site set up at Morton East High School in Cicero. Federal dollars will be given to local health departments, which are responsible for immunizing their own communities.

Read the full story from Mitchell Armentrout here.

8:34 p.m. No in-person classes Friday as CPS, CTU continue negotiations to avert strike

As negotiations continue between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, Thursday came and went with little news out of either camp.

CPS told families once again to keep their children home for remote learning Friday while CTU continues its labor action that calls for the collective refusal of in-person work until an agreement is reached. But the heated public rhetoric that has engulfed the district’s relationship with the union was toned down, at least for a day.

Asked in a radio appearance if there was enough time left to reach an agreement, CEO Janice Jackson said she’s committed to the scheduled Monday return of 62,000 K-8 students and about 10,000 teachers — plus 3,200 preschool and special education students whose in-person classes have been canceled this week.

“We expect students and staff to be in school on Monday,” Jackson said Thursday on WBEZ’s Reset. “That’s what we expect to happen.

Reporter Nader Issa has the full story.

5:10 p.m. Biden opens sign-up window for uninsured in time of COVID-19

President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered government health insurance markets to reopen for a special sign-up window, offering uninsured Americans a haven as the spread of COVID-19 remains dangerously high and vaccines aren’t yet widely available.

Biden signed an executive order directing the HealthCare.gov insurance markets to take new applications for subsidized benefits, something Donald Trump’s administration had refused to do. He also instructed his administration to consider reversing other Trump health care policies, including curbs on abortion counseling and the imposition of work requirements for low-income people getting Medicaid.

“There’s nothing new that we’re doing here other than restoring the Affordable Care Act and restoring Medicaid to the way it was before Trump became president,” Biden said as he signed the directives in the Oval Office. He declared he was reversing “my predecessor’s attack on women’s health.”

The actions were only the first steps by Biden, who has promised to build out former President Barack Obama’s health care law to achieve a goal of coverage for all. While Biden rejects the idea of a government-run system that Sen. Bernie Sanders has pushed for in his “Medicare for All” proposal, his more centrist approach will require congressional buy-in. But opposition to “Obamacare” runs deep among Republicans.

Read the full report here.

3:59 p.m. Novavax vaccine seems effective against COVID-19 in UK study

Novavax Inc. said Thursday that its COVID-19 vaccine appears 89% effective based on early findings from a British study and that it also seems to work — though not quite as well — against new mutated strains of the virus circulating in that country and South Africa.

The announcement comes amid worry about whether a variety of vaccines being rolled out around the world will be strong enough to protect against worrisome new variants – and also the world needs new types of shoots to boost scarce supplies.

The study of 15,000 people in Britain is still underway. But an interim analysis found 62 participants so far have been diagnosed with COVID-19 – only six of them in the group that got vaccine and the rest who received dummy shots.

The infections occurred at a time when Britain was experiencing a jump in COVID-19 caused by a more contagious variant. A preliminary analysis found over half of the trial participants who became infected had the mutated version. The numbers are very small but Novavax said they suggest the vaccine is nearly 96% effective against the older coronavirus and nearly 86% effective against the new variant.

Scientists have been even more worried about a strain first discovered in South Africa that carries different mutations – and results from a smaller Novavax study suggests the vaccine does work but not nearly as well as it does against the variant from Britain.

Read the full story here.

2:01 p.m. Why Chicago can’t immediately vaccinate all its teachers

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago teachers have argued they should be vaccinated against COVID-19 before Chicago Public Schools officials require them to return to their classrooms next week.

Educators in the city have seen some smaller suburban districts take that approach and watched wealthy private schools secure batches of shots to immediately administer to their staff.

Chicago’s Board of Education asked at its monthly meeting Wednesday why the city can’t do the same.

Board member Amy Rome wondered what was being done to prioritize teachers for inoculations, and member Elizabeth Todd-Breland said “it’s hard to see educators in other parts of the state getting vaccine, or being asked about a vaccine, several weeks ago.

“Is that a federal issue, is that a pharmaceutical company issue, is that a state issue?” Todd-Breland asked.

Dr. Marielle Fricchione of the city’s Health Department said Chicago is so large that it — along with N.Y.C., Philadelphia, Houston and L.A. County — receives vaccines directly from the federal government, while suburbs and other towns have gotten doses through the state.

“Unfortunately, that formula that they used did not take into account both the high percentage of health care workers that we have in our jurisdiction, as well as just the population density in and of itself and our disproportionate burden,” Fricchione told the board.

Read the full story from Nader Issa here.

1:51 p.m. Rush University Medical Center opens up online COVID vaccine scheduling

Rush University Medical Center has opened its online portal for COVID-19 vaccine registration.

Rush offers vaccinations only at its main campus downtown. The hospital is following guidelines set by the city and state departments of public health to determine eligibility. Under those guidelines, healthcare workers, people age 65 or older, and other categories of essential workers can be vaccinated. For more details on vaccine eligibility in phase 1B, click here.

To schedule a vaccine at Rush, visit this website. Users will be required to affirm their eligibility before being able to select an appointment time.

Rush will add new appointment times on Mondays, so if no appointments are available, users are encouraged to check at the beginning of the week.

Read the full story from Caroline Hurley here.

12:43 p.m. State lawmakers are pushing to curb governors’ virus powers

Irritated by the sweeping use of executive orders during the COVID-19 crisis, state lawmakers around the U.S. are moving to curb the authority of governors and top health officials to impose emergency restrictions such as mask rules and business shutdowns.

The push is underway in such states as Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana and Pennsylvania, where legislators are seeking a constitutional amendment to strip the governor of many of his emergency powers.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Wayne Langerholc said the amendment would “make it unequivocally clear that our General Assembly is a co-equal branch ... that we are not a monarchy and that our voices matter.”

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and some of his counterparts around the country have argued that they need authority to act quickly and decisively against the fast-changing threat.

The coronavirus has killed an estimated 430,000 Americans and is going through its most lethal phase yet, despite the rollout of vaccines, with new and more contagious variants from abroad turning up in the U.S.

State legislatures generally took on lesser roles after the pandemic hit, with many suspending work or adjourning. It has been governors or their top health officials who have set many of the policies — imposing mask mandates, limiting public gatherings and shutting down dine-in restaurants, gyms, hair salons and other businesses.

Read the full story here.

10:55 a.m. WHO team in Wuhan departs quarantine for COVID origins study

WUHAN, China — A World Health Organization team emerged from quarantine in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Thursday to start field work in a fact-finding mission on the origins of the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The researchers, who were required to isolate for 14 days after arriving in China, left their quarantine hotel with their luggage — including at least four yoga mats — in the midafternoon and headed to another hotel.

The mission has become politically charged, as China seeks to avoid blame for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak. A major question is where the Chinese side will allow the researchers to go and whom they will be able to talk to.

Yellow barriers blocked the entrance to the hotel, keeping the media at a distance. Before the researchers boarded their bus, workers wearing protective outfits and face shields could be seen loading their luggage, including two musical instruments and a dumbbell.

Hotel staff waved goodbye to the researchers, who were wearing face masks. The bus driver wore a full-body white protective suit. They drove about 30 minutes to a lakeside Hilton resort-like hotel.

Former WHO official Keiji Fukuda, who is not part of the team in Wuhan, has cautioned against expecting any breakthroughs, saying it may take years before any firm conclusions can be made about the virus’s origin.

“This is now well over a year past when it all started,” he said earlier this month. “So much of the physical evidence is going to be gone. The memories of people are imprecise and probably the physical layouts of many places are going to be different than they were.”

Read the full story here.

9:11 a.m. Pritzker rips slow vaccine rollout at nursing homes — but pharmacies say he set the schedule

COVID-19 vaccinations at Illinois’ nursing homes have been rolling out slowly — prompting a rebuke from Gov. J.B. Pritzker aimed at the two pharmacy chains responsible for giving the shots.

But advocates for the elderly aren’t letting him off the hook — and the pharmacies say his administration is responsible in part for the delay.

As of Wednesday, just 22% of the more than 537,000 shots allocated for long-term care centers were actually administered. It’s not clear how many of those doses have been distributed to Walgreens and CVS, but the companies say they are working on a timetable set by the state.

Bristling at criticism that the state is not quickly getting vaccines out to its residents, Pritzker repeated at a news conference Wednesday that a federal program for long-term care that relies on the two giant pharmacy chains to administer the shots is to blame. The low number of vaccines given at the homes skews the overall state numbers, which show just over 40% of doses allocated to Illinois have been used, the governor said.

However, Pritzker’s own plan for the vaccinations at homes outside of Chicago adheres to a timetable his administration submitted to the federal government. In fact, the schedule for shots at assisted-care facilities — accounting for the largest number of long-term facilities in Illinois — just began on Monday.

Read the full story from Brett Chase here.

New cases

• The Illinois Department of Public Health reported the latest 3,751 cases detected among 80,124 tests.
• Local and state health officials Monday reported eight new cases of a more contagious COVID-19 variant in Illinois.
• As of Sunday night, 2,962 people with COVID-19 were in Illinois hospitals, with 601 patients in intensive care units and 302 on ventilators.

Analysis & Commentary

9:13 a.m. Take it from Gwen - get the vaccine

My faithful readers know that Gwen Washington, 87, is feisty and fearless. My mother, as they say, “don’t take no stuff.”

She demands what is rightfully hers, and then some, from the store manager at her neighborhood Walgreens to powerful Chicago politicians. She has stood toe-to-toe with former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

Now we are hearing about “vaccine hesitancy,” especially among African Americans and other people of color.

Gwen isn’t hesitant. She is a self-appointed ambassador for the COVID-19 vaccine. “I would advise anyone who is African American to take the shot,” she says.

For weeks, my mother has been badgering her doctors, nurses and everyone else within earshot: “Where is the vaccine? Don’t you know how old I am?”

The email with an invitation to make an appointment finally arrived. On Thursday, she took an Uber from her Hyde Park apartment to the University of Chicago Hospital to get her first of two doses of the precious commodity.

“I got the Pfizer shot!” she declared to me on the phone. “It only took a second!”

Read the full column from Laura Washington here.