About 20,000 first-dose coronavirus vaccination appointments were booked within two hours of opening Friday in Cook County, health officials announced.
The appointments for five Cook County vaccination sites opened at noon for those eligible in Phases 1A and 1B, officials said.
For those able to book vaccination appointments, Cook County Health said the following sites will receive doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines:
- Tinley Park Convention Center (Moderna)
- Triton College (Pfizer)
- South Suburban College (Pfizer)
- North Riverside Health Center (Pfizer)
- Des Plaines (Pfizer, the week of March 15)
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All vaccinations are by appointment only, health officials noted, and made online at vaccine.cookcountyil.gov or by calling (833) 308-1988.
Previously, the Des Plaines location was administering Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses, but the county said due to limited supply, the location will instead be provided with the Pfizer vaccine for the week of March 15.
Those who receive vaccines through the Cook County sites will book their second-dose appointments the same day as their first-dose appointments.
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The sites are part of several mass vaccination locations in Illinois. Currently, there are 22 statewide. Here's a full list.
Nine rural Illinois hospitals will also be receiving additional COVID vaccine doses from the state as part of a new program aimed at expanding equitable distribution, according to officials.
On Thursday, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Public Health announced the nine rural critical access hospitals were selected as part of the Safety Net Direct Vaccine Allocation Pilot Program that will provide hundreds of doses to each site per week.
The state will provide a total of nearly 6,000 doses of the vaccine to the nine hospitals in addition to the existing allocations that the state already is distributing to health care sites.
The effort marks the next phase of the vaccine pilot program that was announced last week in which five health centers and four hospitals received vaccine supply from the federal government.
