Pritzker Defends Vaccine Rollout As Questions About Access Persist
Governor JB Pritzker said Thursday 9 additional hospitals in rural parts of the state would receive additional vaccine doses to help cut wait times and increase availability for people without access to large state or federal vaccination sites.
Governor JB Pritzker says he’s allocating additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to nine mostly rural hospitals around the state to help cut down on wait times and improve access for those outside of major metropolitan areas in the state.
Speaking at the opening of a new site in Morris in Grundy County, run by the Illinois National Guard, Pritzker said hospitals in Aledo, Fairfield, Gibson City, Hillsboro, Hoopeston, Hopedale, Lincoln, McLeansboro, and Taylorville would receive more doses that have been allocated by the federal government.
“Rural communities deserve the same protections from the virus that suburban or urban communities get,” Pritzker said. “While national demand is still higher than the national supply, my team is allocating what we receive from the federal government across the state as soon as we get it. It’s only a matter of time until we have enough vaccine in Illinois for all who want it.”
Pritzker defended the state’s rollout of the vaccine, claiming delays and communication problems are due to limited availability.
“Believe me, I share the frustration that many people have had because I wish we would have had enough vaccine available to reach everyone available on day one,” he said. “But I encourage everyone to share my hope.”
But, Senator Sue Rezin (R-Morris), who did not attend the Governor’s event in her hometown, says while she’s happy for the new site in Grundy County, she’s concerned about the state rollout thus far.
“While I am overjoyed that Grundy County has received the additional vaccines we have been seeking on their behalf, [I have] several outstanding questions regarding the Pritzker Administration’s vaccination rollout.,” Rezin said in a statement. “We have continually asked the Governor’s administration to provide more transparency on his vaccination rollout data, including his formula for allocation and why some counties are receiving far more vaccinations than others, so we can better understand the process and communicate it to our constituents.”
She says the Pritzker administration has not responded to the Senate GOP requests.
Pritzker said Thursday without enough doses, it wasn’t possible to have the full vaccine infrastructure in place sooner.
“In terms of rolling out locations, with the ramp up of vaccine, you don’t just want to build these locations and then not have the doses to administer to people,” he said. “So we’re building them across the state as we need them as there is more vaccine available to us.”
Pritzker said he was “proud” of the number of first vaccine doses that have been distributed thus far. The latest data from the Illinois Department of Public Health show over 2.3 million Illinois residents have received at least the first dose of the vaccine.
An Illinois National Guard spokesman says, as of Thursday, around 1,300 personnel have been stationed at vaccination clinics around the state, but it isn’t clear how many of those guardsmen have the training to actually administer the vaccine.
IDPH reports around 10% of the state population is fully vaccinated. Many counties, though, continue to lag far behind the state average. Around 2% of the population of far southern Alexander County has been vaccinated, while Massac County along the Ohio River is below 4%. Fayette County reports about 4.5%.