Illinois Continues to Struggle with Administering Phase 1b Vaccinations to the State’s 3.2 Million Phase 1b Eligible Residents:  While the state’s positivity rate continues its downward trend over the last few weeks, the state is struggling mightily to administer its Phase 1b vaccinations throughout Illinois.     

A total of 1,583,425 doses of vaccine have been delivered to providers in Illinois, including Chicago. A total of 1,094,135 vaccines have been administered in Illinois as of last night, including 175,900 for long-term care facilities. The 7-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 45,787 doses.

As of this week, only 26.4 percent of the almost 500,00 doses distributed to the federal Pharmacy Partnership program have been administered to residents of long-term care facilities through pharmacy chains such as CVS and Walgreens.  According to Governor Pritzker, these pharmacy chains hope to have the first round of vaccinations at assisted living and long-term care facilities completed by Feb. 15.   

The Governor also announced that his administration is making $25 million available to increase staff, training, and rental space at the state’s 97 local health departments.  In addition, he also claimed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will also be providing the state with an additional $43 million to expand mobile vaccination operations and offer more “easy-access locations” for residents as the national vaccine supply increases. 

CICI will keep the membership abreast of this situation and report back here with any developments.  In the meantime, the state has updated its COVID-19 website containing current locations and other pertinent information on one webpage.

OSHA Issues Updated Guidance on COVID-19 in the Workplace: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has prepared updated guidance for planning purposes. Employers and workers should use this guidance to help identify risks of being exposed to and of contracting COVID-19 in workplace settings and to determine any appropriate control measures to implement.

This guidance is intended to inform employers and workers in most workplace settings outside of healthcare to help them identify risks of being exposed to and/or contracting COVID-19 at work and to help them determine appropriate control measures to implement. Separate guidance is applicable to healthcare (CDC guidance) and emergency response (CDC guidance) settings. OSHA has additional industry-specific guidance. This guidance contains recommendations as well as descriptions of mandatory safety and health standards. The recommendations are advisory in nature, informational in content, and are intended to assist employers in providing a safe and healthful workplace.

This guidance is not a standard or regulation, and it creates no new legal obligations. It contains recommendations as well as descriptions of existing mandatory safety and health standards. The recommendations are also advisory in nature, informational in content, and are intended to assist employers in recognizing and abating hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm as part of their obligation to provide a safe and healthful workplace.

Governor Pritzker Allows State Lawmakers to Get Vaccinated in Phase 1b:  At the request of legislative leaders, Governor Pritzker today announced that he will allow all 177 state lawmakers to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in Phase 1b, which has previously been only allotted for residents 65 years of age and older and frontline essential workers.  The Governor claimed that this was being done because of the urgent and vital business legislators need to address. However, according to today’s press reports, there has not been any indication as to whether these lawmakers will be prioritized within Phase 1b to receive vaccine shots which are in short supply.

Tracker with State Vaccine Updates & COVID-19 Orders:  The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has again updated its comprehensive COVID-19 Tracker (attached to this Update) with separate charts illustrating state vaccine plans, including documents detailing updated state specific orders and mitigation measures as well as executive orders and legislation relating to business liability. 

Canada COVID-19 Information: For those CICI members who would like to receive information about vaccination protocols and COVID-19 restrictions in Canada, please reach out to Mark Biel at [email protected] to be added to the distribution list. Our friends at the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada have been kind enough to share their COVID-19 information with CICI.

Update on COVID-19 Cases: IDPH is reporting 1,134,231 positive tests of COVID-19 in Illinois, an average increase of 3,150 new positive tests per day since reported here 7 days ago on January 27.  In total, 16,258,348 tests have now been conducted in Illinois for the virus, an average increase of 89,272 tests per day since January 27. 

The state’s average positivity rate over all 11 regions is at 3.5% for the last 7 days.  You can see where the various regions are at in terms of their positivity rates, hospitalizations, and other metrics at this link. 

Unfortunately, IDPH is reporting a total of 18,964 deaths, an average increase of 74 per day since January 27.

You can also check where these cases are occurring at the State of Illinois COVID-19 website which also contains more information on this outbreak.

Also, IDPH has a case breakdown of the number of positive cases in Chicago and each county relative to the number of fatalities.  The IDPH website also now includes a breakdown of the cases under each zip code in the state.

For information on other states and countries, John Hopkins University has developed this website that provides invaluable resources at a one-stop location detailing testing and tracing trends, timelines of COVID-19 policies, and interactive maps.

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