To be clear, the number of daily doses are generally increasing, recently topping 70,000 per day in the state. However, that’s only one way to look at the data. States were always expecting to get better as the process moved on, but when comparing Illinois’ figures with other states, its performance appears laskluster.
As of Friday, out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, Illinois ranked 45th in the rate of shots each state has injected, when adjusted for population.
The Pritzker administration counters that the state so far has gotten less vaccine, per resident, than most others. And that’s true. The state ranks 34th, per capita, in doses provided by the federal government. (Illinois congressmen recently asked federal officials why. There was no immediate response.)
That still wouldn’t explain another ranking — 41st — for the percent of vaccine received that’s been injected into residents. In essence, even if Illinois has gotten a smaller share of vaccine than it deserves, it’s injected a smaller percentage of its share than most states. Illinois officials say such figures don’t reflect an accurate score card for judging bigger states facing more complexities in delivery across urban and rural areas. Illinois is in fact, the sixth-most populated state.
Even with focusing on the six largest states, Illinois ranks second-worst at the rate of getting doses into arms. The difference in rate isn’t huge, but If Illinois, at 57%, had kept pace with Texas, at 66%, it would have meant nearly another 180,000 shots delivered into Illinoisans by now.
What else caused the low vaccine delivery?
The national problems have been well documented, with the Trump administration pushing much of the distribution challenges to the states without much money or guidance.
Those who study vaccine logistics say that every state was stuck trying to build out its own system, with already overworked staffers using glitchy software to manage a complicated rollout of delicate, frozen vials of vaccines. In Illinois, there’s one more caveat: Chicago handles its own doses, directly from the federal government. The rest of the state, including the suburbs, is overseen by the state health department. Among other things, it means additional coordination because people living in the suburbs might work in the city, or vice versa, and get doses at either place. However, States were warned about logistical challenges well before the first vaccines were shipped out before Christmas.
Some places were predicted to have real problems, like West Virginia, with a far older, more remote population. Yet, that state became a national model in vaccine delivery, which enlisted its National Guard to game-plan distribution as early as November.
That same month, in Illinois, the state health department hadn’t even settled on who would run its operation. The department put out a request for proposals, a process often described by its initials, RFP. In questions accompanying the RFP, the state said it was seeking an outside firm for “high level planning, strategy, managing and oversight” of the effort.
Ultimately, the state abandoned the idea of seeking an outside firm to manage the project, and instead grouped four newly hired staffers with an agency deputy director and consultants already working with the department.
Early challenges
When those first doses arrived in mid-December, state and local health officials quickly handed them out to hospitals across the state to begin the process of vaccinating their workers. They were set to be the first ripples in waves that would wash over other health care workers in group 1a, then ultimately the other waves, starting with the 1b group of seniors and front-line essential workers.