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Rush University Medical Center to begin COVID vaccinations next week
Rush University Medical Center will start giving the vaccines to employees early next week, now that the FDA has approved the shots.
CHICAGO - A leading Chicago hospital is showing off its COVID-19 vaccination plan.
Rush University Medical Center will start giving the vaccines to employees early next week, now that the FDA has approved the shots.
“This represents hope,” said Erin Shaughnessy of Rush University Medical Center.
Rush has set up 10 vaccination bays in Brennan Pavilion and hopes to vaccinate about 1,000 workers a day. It expects to receive a significant number of doses in the first shipment and plans to vaccinate frontline workers first.
“This is a vaccination effort that has never before been seen or undertaken in this manner,” one health official said.
People in Lake County are registering for the vaccine through a portal on the county health department website. Officials say 80,000 people signed up in the first 48 hours since it launched.
“When their phase comes up, we will notify that the vaccine is available for them,” said Lake County Health Department Executive Director Mark Pfister.
Despite hope in a vaccine, it may take time to get the shots distributed to the general public.
“According to Dr. Fauci and others, it may be April before we see widespread distribution to the general public,” Gov. JB Pritzker said Friday.
The state's top doctor is urging people to mask up and help ease the burden on hospitals.
“We have some areas where there are a dozen, a dozen beds, a dozen ICU beds, in the region right now. So a big surge cannot be handled,” said Dr. Ngozi Ezike.
On Friday, state health officials reported more than 9,400 new COVID cases. Illinois also hit another unfortunate milestone, with more than 14,000 COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic.