7,116 Vaccinated Against Coronavirus In Will County

WILL COUNTY, IL — More than 7,100 people in Will County were fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by Tuesday, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. That represents about 1.03 percent of the county's total population.

About 17,546 others in Will County have received the first dose of the vaccine, with 24,662 total doses administered in the county by Tuesday, according to statistics from the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The speed of administering vaccines has actually decreased over the past week in Will County, the state's data shows. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered sat at about 725 people Tuesday, down from 1,418 a week prior.

Will County ranked fourth in terms of doses administered, trailing Chicago, and Cook and DuPage counties.

23,059 people in Cook County and 25,757 in the city of Chicago are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but no one in Clark County had received both doses of the vaccine by Tuesday, public health data shows.

More than 537,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine were administered statewide by Tuesday.

About 86,000 doses were given to residents and staff at Illinois long-term-care facilities through a federal program run by CVS and Walgreens.

Public health officials expect to complete the first phase, Phase 1a, of the state's COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan next week, according to the governor. About 3.2 million people will be eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine in Phase 1b, including Illinois residents 65 and older, front-line essential workers and prison inmates.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday also lifted some coronavirus restrictions on Regions 1, 2 and 5, in northwest, north central and southern Illinois, respectively, as case rates declined in there.

On Monday, the Illinois Department of Public Health said it would no longer include non-ICU bed availability in the metrics it uses to determine whether a region can advance to a less-restrictive tier of mitigations — clearing the way for restrictions to be reduced on several more regions.

Officials hope a new statewide surge staffing initiative will offset reduced capacity by allowing hospitals with unstaffed beds to take more patients. Using the new metrics, Regions 8, 9, 10 and 11 — Kane and DuPage counties, Lake and McHenry counties, suburban Cook County and the city of Chicago, respectively — will move to Tier 2. Regions 1 and 6 will move to Tier 1, and Regions 3 and 5 will return to Phase 4 of the Restore Illinois Plan. Region 7, which includes Will County, will remain in Tier 3 mitigations.

Patch editor Ryne Danielson contributed to this report.