Governor J.B. Pritzker announced Monday that the Illinois Department of Public Health will be releasing daily updates of vaccine numbers in the state of Illinois on its website.
COVID-19 Vaccine Updates
As of Sunday, January 10th, 334,939 doses have been administered in the state of Illinois, including a second round of shots.
Currently, Illinois is still in Phase 1A of the vaccine distribution, which includes health care workers and long term care facility residents and staff. 850,000 are eligible to receive the vaccine in Illinois under this phase.
Governor Pritzker will announce later in the week when Illinois will begin Phase 1B of vaccine distribution. Around 3.2 million Illinois residents will qualify for the vaccine in Phase 1B. Those who qualified in Phase 1A will still be eligible to be vaccinated in either phase.
Phase 1B will also include front line essential workers, who are classified as those whose work duties can’t be done remotely. It will also include residents from the age of 65 to 74.
Lifting Tier 3 Mitigations
Governor Pritzker also confirmed that Tier 3 mitigations that have been in place since November 20th will be lifted for eligible regions beginning Friday, January 15th.
In order for a region to move back to Tier 2 mitigations, a region must experience less than 12 percent test positivity rate for three consecutive days AND greater than 20 percent available intensive care unit and hospital bed availability AND declining COVID hospitalizations in 7 out of the last 10 days.
Currently, region 8 has recorded 11 consecutive days under the 12% threshold, with a current 7-day rolling positivity rate average of 10.4%. The region also has 11 straight days of over 20% ICU bed availability. There have been declining hospitalizations in nine of the last 10 days.
In addition, region 7, which contains parts of southeast Naperville, currently meets all qualifications to lift tier 3 mitigations. The positivity rate for the region sits at 11.1% according to the most recent data.
Return to Phase 4
Once a region is in Tier 2 mitigations, the IDPH will continue to track the positivity rate in regions requiring additional mitigations over a 14-day monitoring period to determine if mitigations can be relaxed, if additional mitigations are required, or if current mitigation should remain in place.
If the positivity rate averages less than or equal to 6.5 percent over a 3-day period, the region will return to Phase 4 mitigations under the Restore Illinois Plan.
