Coronavirus in Illinois updates: Here’s what happened April 21 with COVID-19 in the Chicago area

Chicago Tribune staff, Chicago Tribune
·11 min read
Coronavirus in Illinois updates: Here’s what happened April 21 with COVID-19 in the Chicago area

Chicago Public Schools is planning for daily in-person classes this fall and is giving schools $225 million more than last year in an effort to address students’ academic, social and emotional needs after more than a year of the coronavirus pandemic.

CPS also plans to continue a remote option in the fall, issuing a statement that it “will be engaging families in the weeks ahead to help develop specific plans for the upcoming school year.”

Meanwhile, as of Wednesday, 50.42% of residents 16 and older have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, reaching a benchmark in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s reopening plan that would allow all coronavirus restrictions to be lifted — if the spread of the virus is stable or decreasing.

Because the virus has been surging since he unveiled the plan last month, officials have said restrictions will remain until transmission is under control.

Additionally, a number of hospitals in northwest and central Illinois are filling up — and at least one ran out of intensive care unit beds — amid the latest COVID-19 surge.

The seven-day average of total hospitalizations is 2,142, the highest since an average of 2,156 was recorded Feb. 10.

Illinois public health officials Wednesday reported 2,765 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 28 additional deaths. That brings the state’s totals to 1,309,552 cases and 21,722 fatalities. There were 140,712 doses of the vaccine administered Tuesday. The seven-day rolling average of daily doses is 122,842.

Here’s what’s happening Wednesday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area:

6:45 p.m.: DePaul University and Columbia College will require COVID-19 vaccines this fall for on-campus students

DePaul University and Columbia College Chicago are the first post-secondary schools in Illinois to require COVID-19 vaccines for students returning to campus this fall.

Columbia College announced the mandate Monday, explaining it will help “maximize opportunities for in-person courses and social and cultural opportunities.” DePaul shared the decision Wednesday and said it was based on “safety, mutual care and social responsibility.”

Both Columbia and DePaul will host vaccine sites on campus in the coming days. The institutions join a small but growing list of schools, including the University of Notre Dame, making students get inoculated in order to live in dorms, attend in-person classes or spend time on campus.

So far, 58 colleges in the U.S. will require students or employees to be vaccinated before fall, according to a list maintained by the Chronicle of Higher Education. All but three of the universities are private.

Read more here. —Elyssa Cherney

6 p.m.: Mix-up at a suburban Mariano’s gives a few patients the wrong COVID-19 booster shot

A Mariano’s pharmacy in west suburban Aurora accidentally administered the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine booster shot to eight patrons who had received the Moderna vaccine for their first dose, a spokeswoman for the grocery store chain said.

The two vaccines are not interchangeable, and both shots are supposed to come from the same manufacturer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“No adverse events for the affected patients have been reported,” said Amanda Puck, Mariano’s director of strategic brand development. “All impacted patients have been contacted. We thank these patients for their understanding and have apologized for their inconvenience.”

Puck added that the incident has been reported to the CDC and the Illinois Department of Public Health, adding that “our team is investigating the matter and will take steps to prevent a similar situation from recurring in the future.”

Read more here. —Angie Leventis Lourgos

2:11 p.m.: CPS plans for daily in-person classes, a remote learning option and bigger school budgets next fall

Chicago Public Schools is planning for daily in-person classes this fall and is giving schools $225 million more than last year in an effort to address students’ academic, social and emotional needs after more than a year of the coronavirus pandemic.

Individual budgets will increase for about 94% of the 513 district-run schools, CPS announced Wednesday. In combination with its not-yet-released operating budget, officials said they will be able to support plans to have schools open for daily in-person classes in the fall.

CPS also plans to continue a remote option in the fall, issuing a statement that it “will be engaging families in the weeks ahead to help develop specific plans for the upcoming school year.”

Read more here. —Hannah Leone

1:36 p.m.: Half of Illinois residents 16 and over have now received at least one COVID-19 shot, but restrictions not going away just yet

An additional 140,712 coronavirus vaccine doses were administered in Illinois, bringing the statewide total to 8,342,542, public health officials reported Wednesday.

The latest figure includes doses administered by Walgreens on Monday, which hadn’t been part of Tuesday’s report due to technical issues, officials said.

As of Wednesday, 50.42% of residents 16 and older have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, reaching a bench mark in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s reopening plan that would allow all coronavirus restrictions to be lifted — if the spread of the virus is stable or decreasing. Because the virus has been surging since he unveiled the plan last month, officials have said restrictions will remain until transmission is under control.

Read more here. —Jenny Whidden

12:13 p.m.: 2,765 new confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases and 28 additional deaths reported

Illinois health officials on Wednesday announced 2,765 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 28 additional fatalities, bringing the total number of known infections in Illinois to 1,309,552 and the statewide death toll to 21,722 since the start of the pandemic.

Officials also reported 81,133 new tests in the last 24 hours. The statewide positivity rate for cases is 3.8%.

The 7-day daily average of administered vaccine doses is 122,842, with 140,712 doses given on Tuesday. Officials also say a total of 8,342,542 vaccines have now been administered.

—Chicago Tribune staff

11:55 a.m.: Chicago City Council returns to in-person meeting, approves Lightfoot affordable housing plan

At their first in-person meeting since the beginning of the pandemic, Chicago aldermen on Wednesday approved Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s long-promised changes to the city’s affordable housing requirements for developers.

Following a mayoral task force that studied how to improve the city statute that was first put in place over a decade ago, the council passed the mayor’s ordinance by a 42-8 vote.

Under the mayor’s rewrite, developers seeking zoning changes in neighborhoods that are fast gentrifying or where there are currently few affordable units will have to make 20% of the units in their buildings affordable. That’s up from 10% in most parts of the city.

Read more here. —John Byrne and Gregory Pratt

11:49 a.m.: White House offers new tax credit in latest plan to motivate more Americans to get vaccinated

The White House is trying to overcome diminishing demand for COVID-19 shots by offering businesses a tax incentive to give employees paid leave to get vaccinated. The move comes as the United States is set to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of administering 200 million coronavirus doses in his first 100 days in office.

With more than 50% of adults at least partially vaccinated and roughly 28 million vaccine doses being delivered each week, demand has eclipsed supply as the constraining factor to vaccinations in much of the country.

Over the last week, the pace of inoculation in the U.S. has slowed slightly. That is partly a reflection of disruptions from the “pause” in administration of the Johnson & Johnson shot for a safety review, but also of softening interest for vaccines in many places even as eligibility has been opened to all those older than 16.

As the vaccination program progresses, the administration believes it will only get more difficult to sustain the current pace of about 3 million shots per day. Roughly 130 million Americans have yet to receive one dose.

In a White House speech on Wednesday, Biden will discuss efforts to expand vaccine distribution and access in his first three months in office, and outline his administration’s latest plans to motivate more Americans to get shots.

Read more here. —Associated Press

11:30 a.m.: Matteson, Tinley Park mass COVID-19 vaccination sites start accepting walk-ins

Two south suburban Cook County mass COVID-19 vaccination sites will accept walk-in appointments starting Wednesday as demand for shots dwindles.

The Matteson and Tinley Park mass vaccination locations are opening up access this week as part of a pilot to see whether removing the barrier of making an appointment online or over the phone will expand the county’s endeavor at getting shots into arms, Cook County Health CEO Israel Rocha Jr. said in a news conference at Provident Hospital.

The change comes as demand for vaccine, which has been acute in the Chicago area during the first few months of its rollout, has winded down and more of the eligible population in suburban Cook County — about one in two — has gotten at least the first dose, Rocha said. Tuesday’s release of appointments at the county’s mass vaccination sites took a few hours to fill up versus a few minutes, which was how long it took a week earlier, Rocha said.

Read more here. —Alice Yin

11:30 a.m.: Inside Rush’s new advanced molecular lab, where scientists are tracking and tracing COVID-19 variants

Amid a global race between COVID-19 vaccinations and emerging virus variants, Chicago has a new advanced molecular laboratory dedicated to tracking and tracing these troubling new coronavirus strains.

Rush University Medical Center earlier this month opened the Regional Innovative Public Health Laboratory under a $3.5 million contract with the Chicago Department of Public Health to monitor COVID-19 variants citywide. The goal of this surveillance is to help public health officials better allocate resources, prevent outbreaks and break the chains of transmission of these often more infectious strains.

Rush has begun collecting random COVID-19 samples from about a half-dozen local hospitals. The lab is using molecular biology tools like whole genome sequencing to analyze specimens for virus mutations, to get a better understanding of how many variants are circulating and where they’re spreading.

“We’re in a critical moment,” said Stefan Green, co-principal investigator at the lab and director of the Genomics and Microbiome Core Facility at Rush. “It’s a race against time. If we get enough people vaccinated, that reduces the likelihood of a novel variant appearing that can escape the vaccine.”

The Biden administration last week announced a $1.7 billion investment to fight variants by scaling up genome sequencing efforts nationwide — the kind of work already underway at the new lab at Rush. A little more than $2.3 million of that federal funding has been allocated to Chicago and an additional $6.4 million to the rest of the state.

Read more here. —Angie Leventis Lourgos

5 a.m.: Hinsdale Central Muslim Student Association keeps spirits high despite a mostly-virtual Ramadan

Ramadan began on April 13 and members of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at Hinsdale Central High School are not letting the mostly-virtual school year stand in the way of coming together as a community and the true essence of the Islamic holy month.

Every day for 30 days, Muslims who are able will begin their fast before sunrise with a morning meal called suhoor and break fast with a sunset meal known as iftar. The fast can last from 10 to 21 hours depending on where you live in the world, but in most parts of the United States, it’s about 15 to 16 hours. During the experience of loss and discomfort, the focus shifts to renewing one’s faith and diving deeper into spirituality.

Previous, pre-pandemic Ramadans were different in all the ways that make Ramadan what it is. Large family gatherings, communal prayer, iftar parties — and for high school students in MSA, a chance to share the month with their non-Muslim counterparts.

Read more here. —Zareen Syed, Pioneer Press

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