- Credibility:
CHICAGO — Every city department has now seen more than 90 percent of its workers comply with Chicago’s vaccine mandate — except City Council workers, according to city data released Monday.
City Council staffers — employees who work with aldermen’s offices, though aldermen themselves are not required to report their status — have the lowest compliance rate with the mandate. Just 83.8 percent of City Council workers, or 300 out of 358 workers, have reported their vaccination status. Of those, 96.3 percent are fully vaccinated.
The Police Department was in last place for months when it came to complying with the mandate. That changed last week, when its compliance rate passed that of City Council workers.
In the Police Department, 91.71 percent of workers have reported their vaccination status. Of those, about 73.7 percent are fully vaccinated.
Still, the bulk of employees who haven’t reported their status are in the Police Department, where 1,047 workers out of 12,628 haven’t complied, according to the data. That accounts for more than 77 percent of the city workers who haven’t complied.
Overall, about 95.6 percent of city workers — or 29,442 out of 30,788 — have reported their vaccination status, according to the latest city data. Of the workers who have complied, 81.2 percent are fully vaccinated.
Workers have until Dec. 31 to be fully vaccinated or be approved for an exemption under the requirement.
The mandate has faced controversy from some corners — particularly the Police Department. The Fraternal Order of Police has encouraged officers to deny the mandate. The city and union have filed dueling lawsuits against each other.
In October, a Cook County judge temporarily halted a portion of the city’s vaccine mandate for police officers.
Officers must still follow some parts of the mandate: They must report their status and get tested if they are not fully vaccinated, or the city can discipline them. But the Dec. 31 deadline for actually getting the shots is on hold pending negotiations between the Fraternal Order of Police and the city.
Vaccinations:
• In Illinois, about 7.5 million people — or 59.41 percent of the state’s 12.7 million people — are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to state data.
• Across the state, 67,866 vaccine doses are being administered per day, based on a seven-day rolling average.
• Illinois and Chicago have administered at least 18,181,157 vaccine doses of the 20,741,685 provided to them.
• City data shows more than 1.6 million Chicagoans — or 62.7 percent of all residents — are fully vaccinated, and 69.4 percent of all Chicagoans have gotten at least one shot.
Everyone 5 and older is eligible to get vaccinated in Chicago.
COVID-19 vaccinations are free and do not require insurance. Anyone can call the city’s coronavirus hotline at 312-746-4835 to get more information on how and where to get vaccinated in their community.
The numbers:
• One hundred five Illinoisans were reported dead from COVID-19 since Friday.
• At least 26,906 people have died from COVID-19 in Illinois, and another 3,048 deaths are probably related to the virus, according to the state.
• The state reported 19,415 cases since Friday. That brings the total number of confirmed cases in Illinois up to 1,904,259.
• Since Friday, 494,307 tests were reported statewide. In all, 41,304,940 tests have been reported in Illinois.
• Illinois’ seven-day case positivity rate was at 4 percent. The figure represents the percentage of people testing positive among recent tests. It was at 4.3 percent Friday.
• Illinois’ seven-day test positivity rate, which measures the percentage of tests that were positive, was at 5.7 percent. It was at 5.8 percent Friday.
• As of Sunday night, 748 people with COVID-19 were in the ICU and 352 people with COVID-19 were using ventilators in Illinois.
• In Chicago, 12 deaths was reported since Friday. There have been at least 6,077 deaths from COVID-19 in Chicago. The city is seeing an average of more than five people dying per day, unchanged from last week.
• Chicago has had 3,145 confirmed cases reported since Friday. It’s had a total of 356,776 confirmed cases. An average of 913 confirmed cases are being reported per day, up 38 percent from the week prior.
• Testing in Chicago is up 30 percent since a week ago.
• Chicago’s positivity rate was at 4.1 percent, up from 3.8 percent the week prior.
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