More Than 4 Million Illinois Residents Fully Vaccinated Against COVID-19, But Vaccination Average At Lowest Point Since Early March
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Illinois has surpassed 4 million people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, even as the state's average number vaccinations administered per day has fallen to its lowest point in nearly two months.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 103,717 doses of vaccine were administered statewide on Thursday, and the state is now averaging 92,747 vaccinations per day over the past week, down 22 percent from the week before, and a 30 percent drop from the peak of 132,979 per day on April 12.
The current daily vaccination average is the lowest it's been since March 8, when the state was still facing a significant shortage of vaccines, and had yet to expand access to everyone age 16 and older.
A total of 4,031,269 people in Illinois have been fully vaccinated as of Thursday night, accounting for 31.64% of the population.
Gov. JB Pritzker said demand for vaccines has been dropping across the country.
"It's a national trend," he said Friday morning at an event in the Metro East area near St. Louis. "There are just fewer people that are seeking it out."
The governor said that doesn't mean there aren't people who still want to get vaccinated, but would like the process to be more convenient, either because they don't have the transportation they need to get to a vaccine clinic, or are otherwise prevented from getting a shot.
"We're doing everything that we can to reach out to all of those folks, "Pritzker said. "We have mobile operations teams that are all over the state going into communities that we've had difficulty getting people vaccinated in, or where people have had difficulty. We have people knocking on doors, or at least responding to people who've said, 'Hey, I can't leave my home. I'm homebound, and I need someone to give me a vaccine at my home,' and so we've got people going door to door."
Meantime, IDPH reported 3,207 new confirmed and probable cases COVID-19 on Friday, as well as 33 more deaths. Since the start of the pandemic, Illinois has reported a total of 1,335,055 cases, including 21,960 deaths.
Illinois is averaging 2,709 new coronavirus cases per day over the past week, down 4% from a week before, and down 18% from two weeks ago.
The statewide seven-day average case positivity rate stands at 3.4%, tied for the lowest it's been since March 31.
As of Thursday night, a total of 2,024 coronavirus patients were being treated in Illinois hospitals, including 475 in the ICU and 235 on ventilators.
Hospitalizations appear to have plateaued over the past couple weeks. Illinois is averaging 2,091 hospitalizations per day over the past week, down 4% from the week before, but up 5% from two weeks ago. Hospitalizations have dropped three days in a row, but over the past couple weeks, hospitalizations have been up and down, and are still up significantly from March.