CHICAGO — More Chicagoans are learning about coronavirus vaccines as volunteers throughout the city try to help more people get their shots.
The city rolled out its Vaccine Ambassador program in earlier this summer, focusing on reaching residents in 13 South and West Side neighborhoods where vaccination rates were lagging most. Residents and community organizations were trained to canvass neighborhoods, answer people’s questions, encourage them to get their shots and even help them make appointments, said Dr. Allison Arwady, head of the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Volunteers teams since have spread out to more communities. To date, they’ve spoken with 4,500 residents about vaccines.
Though it’s not clear how many people have gotten vaccinated specifically because of that outreach, data show percentages of people getting shots in some of the areas volunteers targeted are going up.
In the 60624 ZIP code on the West Side, 32.6 percent of residents were fully vaccinated and 37.5 percent of people had received at least one shot as of July 1. Now, more than 39.4 percent are fully vaccinated and and 45.8 percent have gotten a shot.
Anyone 12 and older is eligible to get vaccinated in Chicago. The shots are free and do not require health insurance.
Vaccinations:
• In Illinois, just over 6.9 million people — or 54.21 percent of the state’s 12.7 million people — have gotten all their COVID-19 vaccine shots, according to state data.
• Across the state, 20,648 vaccine doses are being administered per day, based on a seven-day rolling average.
• Illinois and Chicago have administered at least 14,262,916 vaccine doses of the 16,877,465 provided to them.
• City data shows nearly 1.53 million Chicagoans — or 56.7 percent of all residents — are fully vaccinated. Sixty-two percent of all Chicagoans have gotten at least one shot.
The numbers:
• Since Wednesday, 41 Illinoisans were reported dead from COVID-19.
• At least 24,492 people have died from COVID-19 in Illinois, and another 2,621 deaths are probably related to the virus, according to the state.
• The state reported 4,349 cases since Wednesday. That brings the total number of confirmed cases in Illinois up to 1,586,741.
• Since Wednesday, 115,099 tests were reported statewide. In all, 30,308,310 tests have been reported in Illinois.
• Illinois’ seven-day positivity rate was at 4.1 percent. The figure represents the percentage of people testing positive among recent tests. It was at 4.4 percent Wednesday.
• Illinois’ seven-day test positivity rate, which measures the percentage of tests that were positive, was at 4.6 percent. It was at 4.8 percent Wednesday.
• As of Wednesday night, 519 people with COVID-19 were in the ICU and 275 people with COVID-19 were using ventilators in Illinois.
• In Chicago, four deaths were reported since Wednesday. There have been at least 5,716 deaths from COVID-19 in Chicago. The city is seeing an average of 4.71 deaths per day, down 15 percent from a week ago.
• Chicago has had a total of 310,898 confirmed cases. An average of 436 confirmed cases are being reported per day, an 8 percent decrease from the week prior.
• Average daily testing is at the same rate as last week.
• Chicago’s positivity rate was at 3.4 percent, down from 3.7 percent a week ago.
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