BELLEVILLE, Ill. – Gov. Pritzker announced Thursday that the state expects to receive up to 500,000 vaccine doses from the federal government next week, but Illinois still remains behind others in distribution.
Touring a mass vaccination site in Belleville Thursday, Gov. Pritzker said vaccine availability is expected to grow, despite some delays due to winter weather.
“Now the federal government over the last couple of days with terrible weather across the nationl, they’ve had a difficult time distributing to the states, now we’re starting to see those deliveries come through but it’s no fault of theirs,” Pritzker said.
To date, Illinois has received just over 2,500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines. More than than 1,900,000 of the shots have been administered and the state is averaging about 61,000 shots per day.
Still, only 3.7 percent of the state’s population has been fully vaccinated.
“That doesn’t mean that getting an appointment for a vaccine hasn’t been a frustrating experience, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been frustrating for me as governor to not have enough supply coming into the state to provide for everyone who wants to be vaccinated,” Pritzker said.
According to a database from the New York Times, Illinois ranked 18th among all states with 12 percent of the state having received at least one dose of the vaccine.
But Pritzker does expect the state to receive up to half a million vaccine doses next week.
Currently, 850 vaccination sites have opened across the state, including mass vaccination sites in all regions of the state.
Gov. Pritzker also hopes the Johnson and Johnson vaccine will be approved following a February 26th FDA meeting—creating even more vaccine supply.
