COVID-19 Vaccine

**UPDATED to include information on postponed J&J Vaccine clinics**

As of Monday, April 12, anyone 16 and older is eligible for a COVID Vaccine in Illinois.

State and county health departments are partnering with health providers and pharmacies to help administer COVID-19 vaccine. Here is our list for the week of April 12-18:

Appointments also available through Illinois' COVID Vaccine Registration Page

On advice of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Illinois will pause distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson.

The federal agencies made that recommendation Tuesday morning after reporting rare and severe blood clots in six people who had taken the vaccine. The CDC and FDA are reviewing the data regarding those cases.

Gov. JB Pritzker reiterated Thursday that all Illinois residents age 16 and older will be eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine beginning Monday, April 12, as vaccine supply – but also virus transmission rates and hospitalizations – continues to increase.

More than 80 of the state’s 102 counties have already opened eligibility to individuals age 16 and over in advance of the April 12 eligibility expansion date.

State and county health departments are partnering with health providers and pharmacies to help administer COVID-19 vaccine. Here is our list for the week of April 4-12:

Appointments also available through Illinois' COVID Vaccine Registration Page

State and county health departments are partnering with health providers and pharmacies to help administer COVID-19 vaccine. Here is our list for the week of March 29-April 3:

Areas of the state may begin vaccinating those 16 years of age or older earlier than anticipated as vaccine demand slows under current guidelines and COVID-19 hospitalizations and cases see an uptick.

Vaccine eligibility is not set to open statewide until April 12, but in response to an increase in cases, Gov. JB Pritzker announced that local health departments seeing low vaccine demand can expand eligibility to all who are 16 and older. The state also announced the deployment of five mobile teams to combat a surge in northwest Illinois.

Gov. JB Pritzker received a COVID-19 vaccine and briefly took questions from reporters at the Illinois State Fairgrounds on Wednesday as the state’s seven-day rolling average COVID-19 positivity rate ticked up to its highest point since Feb. 11.

The 2.8 percent case positivity rate represented an increase of 0.3 percent from the day prior and 0.7 percent from its low of 11 days earlier – a 25 percent increase in that span. There were 1,261 hospital beds in use for COVID-19 as of Tuesday night, roughly level from the day prior but a 14 percent increase since March 12. There were 269 intensive care unit beds in use by COVID-19 patients and 130 ventilators, both near their highs of the month.

As more COVID vaccine doses are shipped across the country, our region is seeing an up-tick in clinics being scheduled.

A temporary vaccination site will be held at Heartland Regional Medical Center in Marion on Monday, March 22nd from 9 am through 7 pm.

Up to 300 doses will be distributed. Appointments are required. To sign up, go to the IDPH website and use the code SPARCHRMC0322. Or call the IDPH vaccine hotline at (833) 621-1284. English and Spanish speaking operators will be available to assist.

The Franklin-Williamson Bi-County Health Department will offer walk-in mass vaccination clinics just for those 65 and older at the Pavilion in Marion and the VF Outlet Store in West Frankfort.

Southern Seven Health Department is hosting a COVID-19 vaccination clinic to administer the one-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine.