NOTE: Watch the governor's news conference live beginning at noon in the player above
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is set to deliver his first update on the state's coronavirus response Wednesday for the first time in two weeks.
Pritzker is expected to speak at 12 p.m. from the Thompson Center in Chicago, according to his public schedule. (Watch live in the player above)
The briefing will mark Pritzker's first of the new year, as the state continues to roll out its vaccine administration plan. Details on what he was expected to discuss Wednesday were not immediately available.
Pritzker's last briefing was on Dec. 23, while his most recent update came on Dec. 31 when his office announced that all residents and employees of the Illinois Veterans’ Homes had the COVID-19 vaccine made available to them, with first doses administered to those who opted to receive it.
The same day, a spokeswoman for Pritzker said that 143,924 doses of the vaccine had been administered across the state, including those given in Chicago. That figure was released amid nationwide concerns over vaccinations being administered more slowly than anticipated.
Operation Warp Speed is hoping to vaccinate approximately 80% of the country’s 330.7 million residents by the end of June, and to meet that goal, an average of more than 3 million people would have to get the shots each day.
Local
Thus far, roughly 4.8 million Americans, most of them front-line health care workers, have gotten their shots out of the 17 million doses that have been delivered, meaning that approximately 28% of the doses that have been delivered have actually been administered thus far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The latest figures from the CDC show that Illinois has received approximately 538,300 doses of the vaccine, with roughly 176,000 people receiving their first of two doses of the vaccine.
