Kane County seeks patience from residents as Health Dept. distributes COVID-19 vaccine

GENEVA – While Kane County residents may be ready – and anxious – to get their coronavirus vaccines, county health officials say they need a little more patience as they get more doses available.

The Kane County Health Department has received nearly 44,000 doses of the vaccine, said Michael Isaacson, assistant director of community health at the Kane County Health Department.

Of those, 22,000 to 24,000 were administered by the department and 20,000 were delivered to hospitals, he said.

“Just like the rest of the country, it’s been a little bit intermittent – how much has been coming to us,” Isaacson said, speaking at the Committee of the Whole Tuesday afternoon.

“So it’s been very hard for us to predict from week to week how much is coming. About 13,000 doses that were delivered last week, we don’t expect to get any this week,” Isaacson said. “So when we do our planning and set our schedules, we are being very cautious about scheduling clinics unless we really feel secure that we’re going to have vaccine on hand.”

That’s why the answer to residents calling to ask, “Why can’t I just sign up and make an appointment right now?”– is that officials are making sure there is a dose of vaccine to match the appointment.

“Around the country, there’s many places – New York, etc. – where they’re actually having to cancel a lot of clinics because the vaccine hasn’t shown up,” Isaacson said. “So we are taking a more conservative approach to scheduling clinics.”

Isaacson said the state has been sending vaccine to the health department to distribute, but the state will now be sending it directly to the providers who are signed up to administer the vaccines.

The county has been receiving the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine, which must be given in two doses. Johnson and Johnson is getting ready to release a single-dose vaccine that will cut the work in half, Isaacson said.

“It’s only going to get better from here. We thought it would never come,” Isaacson said. “I’d like to point out that it’s pretty miraculous that for a disease that just showed up a year ago that we already have multiple vaccines on the market.”

Tempering expectations

Isaacson said though things are not moving as quickly as people would like, the county has the infrastructure and logistical capacity to push the vaccine out to people.

The Kane County Health Department website will be updated with information and links about where to go to make appointments to get the vaccine.

But not just yet.

“We want very much to temper expectations,” Isaacson said. “Because this is just rolling out now. We’ve just come in to 1B, so when people will soon be able to make an appointment – there’s not appointments available yet – but that’s going to change in the next few days as more and more vaccine comes into our communities, not only through the health department but also through the providers we are working with.”

The category of 1A are people in long-term care facilities and healthcare workers and 1B are for frontline workers, those age 65 and older, nursing home residents, among others, according to CDC guidelines.

Isaacson said 1A isn’t even finished yet and 1B – with some 75,000 residents qualifying – started this week.

The county’s strategy is to push the vaccine out to as many different places as possible, Isaacson said.

The vaccine will not only be provided through the health department, but also among more than 40 providers that have signed up and been approved by the state to deliver vaccine. Isaacson said these include pharmacies, the county’s five hospitals, and federally-qualified family health care centers – VNA Health Care, Greater Elgin Family Care Center and Aunt Martha’s.

“We hope that that will make it easier for our residents to get it, because they’ll be able to go someplace where they’re familiar – either to their own doctor, their own pharmacy – as opposed to putting less emphasis on standing up (in) big clinics where people are standing in line outside of a gym,” Isaacson said. “We think this will get the vaccine out to them sooner.”

Vaccine outreach

Not only is it important to get the vaccine and be able to schedule appointments, but a general outreach and information campaign is also necessary, he said.

The Illinois Public Health Association received a $14 million state grant for the Kane and DuPage region, Isaacson said.

“Much of that going to local organizations to work with us to do outreach,” Isaacson said. “We have a meeting about that next week. This grant has just started at the state level. We’re hoping to be able to push a lot more – not only information out to community organizations – but actual funding to our local organizations so that they can help be messengers to get the word to people.”

Residents will be able to register for a weekly update at https://redcap.link/kchdcovidvaccine once for information about the vaccine, once the link is set up, he said.

Board member Jarett Sanchez, D-Carpentersville, chairman of the Public Health Committee, said other counties are in the same position as Kane in not having enough vaccine to meet demand.

“A lot of Kane County residents are feeling anxiety that it is just Kane County that is experiencing this scenario and it isn’t,” Sanchez said. “We’re not alone in this. Just realize, we are at the beginning of one of the – if not the largest – mass vaccination programs this country has ever seen.”

He reminded people that a little over a year ago that the first known cases of COVID-19 hit the U.S. and by March, people were under restrictions to help stop its spread.

“The vaccine is the one thing that everyone was looking for to helping us get back to normal,” Sanchez said “Now that the vaccine is here, it’s been a long time coming.”

Board Chair Corinne Pierog said her hope was that in the next six months at least 70% of the county’s adults would be vaccinated, “so we can get our economy in Kane County and the entire state of Illinois opened.”

“It’s critically important that we all support this and do everything we can to encourage our neighbors and constituents to get vaccinated as quickly as we can,” Pierog said.