Lightfoot responded to news that ineligible workers at Trump Tower have received shots from Loretto Hospital officials

Gov. Pritzker will announce Thursday that on April 12, vaccine eligibility will expand to any Illinoisan 16 and over, according to two people familiar with the state's plans. The sources could not confirm a Chicago Tribune report that the expansion will not apply to Chicago. The city receives a separate vaccine allocation from the federal government than the state.

Others Illinoisans in vulnerable groups will become eligible for vaccinations in the weeks before that date. Supply will still not be sufficient to vaccinate everyone eligible on that date, but city and state officials have said they expect supply to pick up in April and May.

Further guidance on large indoor gatherings and outdoor events like weddings, graduations, festivals, parades and sporting events will be released Thursday.

The state is also expected to announce details tomorrow on a "bridge phase" between the current Phase 4 and the coming Phase 5. During the bridge phase, more pandemic restrictions will be lifted. 
That interim phase will begin when 70 percent of people 65 and older have received at least one vaccine dose. Currently, 59 percent of seniors have received their first dose. 

Phase 5 would begin when at least half of Illinois residents 16 and older have received their first dose. Currently, 18 percent of those between 16 and 64 have received theirs.

A  source familiar with Chicago's vaccine rollout plans said the city could move to the next phase of its rollout plan—Phase 2, which would include people 16 and older—sooner than its planned May 31 expansion, if supply increases. Currently Chicago is in Phase 1B, with plans to move to 1C at the end of this month.

Earlier:

Chicago will move to its next vaccination phase—1C—as expected on March 29, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced today, citing progress the city has made in fighting COVID-19. But health officials say the supply of doses still isn't matching demand.

Phase 1C includes a majority of adult Chicagoans, people ages 16 to 64 with underlying medical conditions, and all other essential workers, including in in these industries: finance; food and beverage; retail; higher education; IT and communications; legal; media; government; personal care services; construction; real estate; hotels; and transportation and logistics workers. Read the full list here. See the latest city and state COVID figures in the charts below.
The city will not have enough vaccine for every newly eligible person in Chicago right away, Lightfoot warned. "April will even look better. . . .It will take us some time, because of the limited supply that we are still getting, but hope is on the way." Watch the whole news conference below.
Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said she was surprised to hear President Biden's announcement that all adults would be vaccine eligible by May 1, but she took it "as a sign that the federal government is confident the vaccine supply will ramp up" quickly over the spring.

Roughly 600 health care providers are signed up and ready to administer vaccines in Chicago, but most have been waiting for supply to increase. Arwady promised the launch of more mass vaccination sites, in addition to the ability to get shots at regular health care providers and pharmacies.

Another change coming March 29: Chicago will limit eligibility at city-run vaccination sites to Chicago residents only. Roughly 170,000 shots administered in Chicago have gone to non-Chicago resident, according to city data. Some of that covers people who live outside the city but work here, including health care workers.
Arwady said 1 in 5 Chicagoans have gotten their first vaccine, and the city will have administered more than 1 million doses by next week. She hailed the progress the city and the nation have made in vaccinating people in the first 12 weeks of the campaign.

She said 70 percent to 75 percent of those eligible in Phase 1A have received at least one dose.

"We're now getting twice as much vaccine as we were getting in Phase 1A. It's still not enough to meet demand, but it's a major improvement," Arwady said. The city will be providing both a detailed list of underlying conditions and eligible jobs on its website soon.
"We do expect (Phase 1C eligible people) will be able to make a vaccine appointment in April or May," Arwady said. "It's likely to be May before we have enough vaccine to be able to partner in large ways with employers at a significant scale. We're not going to be done vaccinating Chicago in May."

Lightfoot responded to news that ineligible workers at Trump Tower have received shots from Loretto Hospital officials. "We have a finite amount of vaccine in this city. We've been really, really careful to be sure we're using it in a way that prioritizes the most vulnerable people who are most at risk of spreading it," she said. "This is one event. I don't think it overall affects the hard work that we've put into making sure that this is a distribution process that begins and ends with equity, but we just can't have something like this happen again."

Lightfoot gave a few other examples of 1C eligible people, including restaurant and hotel workers, hairdressers, clergy, and delivery and warehouse workers. The city will still continue vaccinating people who were eligible in 1A and 1B, as well as seniors, one of the most vulnerable populations.

"You've got to wear a face covering when you go out. It's critically important, the most important tool that we have to help prevent the spread of the virus," the mayor said.

Chicago's vaccination campaign began on Dec. 15, covering health care workers as well as residents and staff in long-term care facilities. Phase 1B, which included frontline essential workers and those above 65, kicked off on Jan. 25.

But officials have held off expanding eligibility to those ages 16 to 64 with underlying health conditions. While other parts of the state have made that population eligible, Chicago and Cook County officials have both cited low supply as the reason for not moving forward.
As of March 16, 10.4 percent of Chicago's population was fully vaccinated, and 19.3 percent had received their first dose.

Chicago is running behind the state's average: 12.6 percent of Illinois' overall population is fully vaccinated.

Chicago's test positivity rate is up slightly over this time last week. It's now 2.9 percent, compared to a rolling seven-day average of 2.7 last week. That's still well below the city's target positivity of 5 percent, but average daily cases are also up 10 percent compared to last week. The city is averaging 292 cases per day, up from 266 last week. Arwady has said she'd like to see that number fall below 200.

Arwady also sought to swat away social media rumors that doses at the FEMA-run United Center site were being wasted or that eligibility there had changed to help use up available doses.

"No vaccine is going to waste at the United Center, and yes, we are at capacity at the United Center. We are booking up to 5,700 appointments per day," she said. The site continues to offer Pfizer vaccine only. "There's the capacity to do a full 6,000. We've held it to 5,700, partly because we're opening up a drive-through next week."

Chicago's list of underlying conditions that make people eligible for 1C is slightly broader than the state's, Arwady said. The state allows those with diabetes, pulmonary diseases, heart conditions, chronic kidney disease and cancer; solid organ transplant recipients, pregnant people, smokers, and the disabled who were not covered in previous phases to receive a vaccine. The city's eligibility will also include people with HIV, liver disease, obesity (a body mass index over 30) and schizophrenia.

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