Illinois

Central Illinois Health Departments Expect 1st COVID-19 Vaccine Shipment This Month

WCBU | By Tim Shelley

Published December 4, 2020 at 3:41 PM CST

Nurse Kathe Olmstead prepares a shot that is part of a possible COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc., in Binghamton, N.Y.

Some central Illinois counties should expect to receive their first COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of this month.

Peoria City/County Health Department Administrator Monica Hendrickson said there's a lot of hurdles to overcome in a short time.

Though the Centers for Disease Control issued a draft vaccination plan for the state, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) hasn't yet issued formal guidance. It's likely frontline health care workers and high-risk, long-term care facility residents will be near the top of the priority list, Gov. JB Pritzker has said.

"There is going to be a process that makes it equitably distributed," Hendrickson said.

The governor said Illinois is slated to receive about 109,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses in the first round. On Friday, the governor's office released a list of 50 counties slated to receive vaccines, determined by the highest death rates per capita. Mason, Knox, Tazewell, and Stark counties are among those.

Other Central Illinois counties also expect some imminent developments on the vaccine front.

"Tazewell is currently planning for vaccine arrival later this month as well," Tazewell County Health Department Communications Manager Sara Sparkman said in an email Friday. "At this point, TCHD is waiting for the IDPH Vaccination Plan to offer more guidance to our planning process. Priority groups have been set by the federal government and will be clarified in the plan from the state."

Two doses of the vaccine are administered per patient, 28 days apart.

Vaccine storage poses another challenge. Pfizer's vaccine is the first expected to arrive, and it must be kept at a frigid -80 degrees Celsius, or -112 degrees Fahrenheit.

"The containers that they come in are able to be recharged using dry ice," Hendrickson said. "This is going to be a massive logistics approach that the state coordinates."

Other vaccines, such as the one developed by Moderna, are stored at a warmer -20 degrees Celsius. Hendrickson said the health department already has experience storing other vaccinations at that temperature.

The Woodford County Board of Health recently approved the purchases of new refrigeration and freezer units to store the vaccines.

Hendrickson said public health officials nationwide believe an 80% vaccination rate is needed to build herd immunity successfully and start rolling back more mitigations.

"With that being said, it doesn't mean that once you get vaccinated, or even with the vaccine coming, is a way to lax any of our mitigations," she said. "In fact, it's even more important, because as we wait for enough of the vaccine to come into play and be distributed, we want to make sure we give all of our community a fighting chance."

Reaching that 80% threshold will require overcoming some vaccine skepticism, Hendrickson said. In Peoria, community advocates will be recruited from the general populace to encourage people to get their shots, including those who may mistrust traditional authoritative voices.

Editor's note: This story was updated after the governor's office on late Friday afternoon released a list of counties slated to receive the first vaccine shipments.

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