| Galesburg Register-Mail
GALESBURG — People with high-risk medical conditions who do not fall under the vaccination categories already in effect will become eligible for COVID vaccinations Thursday, even as it appears that there may be less vaccine to go around this week.
Brandon Hofeldt, store director of the Hy-Vee on National Boulevard, confirmed that Galesburg Hy-Vee stores will be following the direction of the state and expanding vaccination into a larger pool of people.
The people eligible will include the members of Group 1B already receiving vaccinations, such as essential workers and everyone age 65 and older. Now eligible will be people who have cancer, chronic kidney disease, COPD, diabetes, heart conditions, obesity, pregnancy, are immunocompromised from an organ transplant, have pulmonary disease, and have sickle cell disease.
More: Vaccine doses top 2M in Illinois; Knox County fully vaccinates 5.88%
The Hy-Vee store received 400 vaccines Wednesday, with another 400 going to the main street Hy-Vee across town. Sign-ups for vaccinations are already underway online.
While Hy-Vee has received its vaccine shipments, the Illinois Department of Public Health is reporting low inventory of vaccine in the county at large.
The Illinois Department of Public Health said that an inventory of only 10 vaccines was left in the county, with all 10 at the county health department’s community partners.
This may be connected to the weather-based delays of vaccine shipments that the Knox County Unified Command announced last week. The Register-Mail has reached out to the Unified Command about this drop-off and have not yet received a response.
Illinois may be extending vaccination to a larger pool, but it is not known if or when Unified Command partners, including the health department, Cottage Hospital and OSF St. Mary, will be able to extend their vaccination group to include the expanded category.
As of late, they have only been vaccinating people ages 65 and older out of Group 1B, as that group has suffered the greatest in deaths from the coronavirus in Knox County. Other members of Group 1B such as teachers and other frontline workers have had to receive their vaccines through Hy-Vee and Walgreens pharmacies.
Only 33 COVID-19 vaccines were administered in Knox County Tuesday, suggesting that supply has indeed dropped. Comparatively, there were 197 vaccine does administered Monday, and 340 were administered Sunday.
This has led in a decline to the county’s seven-day rolling average for daily vaccinations, which now stands at 323, down from 383 the previous day.
According to the governor, daily vaccination allotments should increase come March.
Gov. JB Pritzker said Wednesday the state expects to be receiving up to 100,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine daily by mid-March, up from the approximately 60,000 it is currently receiving on average.
That’s counting only the already-approved Moderna and Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines, and is not including a potential dosage spike that is expected occur if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves a Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week.
The FDA released an analysis Wednesday showing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has met the requirements for Emergency Use Authorization, which is the same approval given to the two existing vaccines.
The analysis showed the vaccine is 66 percent effective against moderate to severe COVID-19 globally, and an FDA panel is scheduled to meet Friday to consider recommending authorization.
Jerry Nowicki of Capitol News Illinois contributed to this report.
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