Less than 1% of McHenry County residents fully vaccinated so far, health department says

The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine will be a “long slow process,” McHenry County Public Health Administrator Melissa Adamson told McHenry County Board Thursday.

Less than 1% of residents have been fully vaccinated so far, a pace that is on par with what other counties across the state are experiencing, Adamson said during the County Board’s Committee of the Whole meeting Thursday morning.

Speeding this process along will require more resources and a collective distribution effort by the McHenry County Department of Health, hospitals and other vaccine providers, she said .

“Many of the local health departments are in the exact same boat,” Adamson said. “It’s going to take an effort well beyond the local health department to vaccinate the entire population.”

The health department is working to get other potential vaccine providers in the county registered with the state’s I-CARE application – the system used by official providers to keep track of who has received the vaccine – so that they can aid in the effort, she said.

Currently, the McHenry County Department of Health is administering about 1,000 doses of the vaccine each week across three clinics held weekly, Adamson said. The department is working to increase the number of clinics offered each week but is currently lacking the extra funding, staff and physical doses needed to do so.

The department expects additional federal funding to flow through the state and out to the county, but may have to wait until the change in presidential administration to receive that, she said.

After McHenry County received its first shipment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 28, further doses of the vaccine have been slowly “trickling in” to the county as is the case with other Illinois counties, Adamson said.

About 6,700 doses of the vaccine have been allocated to the county, a number which includes the doses given to the McHenry County Department of Health as well as doses provided directly to local hospitals and to long-term care facilities through CVS or Walgreens, she said.

County-specific vaccine administration statistics tracked by the Illinois Department of Public Health show that 8,739 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been given to McHenry County residents as of Friday afternoon. The reason for this discrepancy is that residents can be vaccinated in other counties if that is where their place of work is located, Adamson explained.

Of those people, only 1,928 – or 0.62% of the county’s population – have been fully vaccinated, meaning they have received the necessary two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the IDPH data. Future vaccines may require only one dose.

McHenry County is still vaccinating its Phase 1A populations, which include health care workers and the residents and staff of long-term care facilities, Adamson said.

The Phase 1A group ended up being larger than the health department initially prepared for, partially because other congregate living facilities, such as facilities for adults with developmental disabilities, were added to the group relatively late in the process, she said.

“We estimate, now this is just an estimation, that we’re about half way through the 1A group,” Adamson said Thursday.

Some counties are further along in their Phase 1A rollout and as a result, Gov. JB Pritzker announced Friday that Phase 1B will begin Jan. 25.

Last week, the health department sent out a request for residents who are eligible for Phase 1B and 1C to register to receive the vaccine. This request garnered 18,000 responses representing a total of 90,000 people who indicated they are interested in being immunized in the next two phases, Adamson said.

This is not being used as a waitlist, but rather was set up as an informational tool to help the county plan for the next two phases, she said.

Anyone who is eligible for Phase 1B or Phase 1C can register on the health department’s website under “COVID-19 Vaccine.” Lists of who falls into these groups can also be found there.

“Because this is going to be a long process, it is going to require patience,” Adamson said. “We’re going to try to get through it as quickly as possible.”