When is it your turn to get COVID vaccine? Madison County will notify you. Here’s how
Madison County residents wondering when it’s their turn in line for the COVID-19 vaccine have an opportunity to receive notification from their health department.
Health officials are collecting residents’ contact information and details about their employment, age and whether they have health problems through its “COVID-19 vaccination registration survey.”
The Madison County Health Department shared the survey with the public on its Facebook page Monday afternoon. It is also available on the health department’s website at madisonchd.org.
When a resident is eligible for the vaccine, based on the information shared in the survey, the health department says it will contact him or her to schedule a vaccination appointment.
Most of the questions in the survey require a yes or no answer, including if you are likely to come into “frequent contact” with members of the public due to your job; if you are over the age of 75; and if you have any medical conditions that may increase your risk of COVID-19 illness.
The health department also asks residents to select an industry that best fits their job from a list that includes emergency medical services, food service, in-home caregiving, military and retail.
The local agency developed the questions based on preliminary Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on who to prioritize while supplies are limited, the survey states.
Madison County Public Health Director Toni Corona says those outside of health care should not expect a call anytime soon.
Who gets COVID-19 vaccine first in Illinois?
Here are the early priority groups, according to the latest information from the Illinois Department of Public Health on the vaccine, which is subject to change:
- Phase 1A: Health care personnel and people who live or work in long-term care facilities such as nursing homes.
- Phase 1B: People who are 75 years old or older; firefighters; police officers; corrections officers; food and agricultural workers; U.S. Postal Service workers; manufacturing workers; grocery store workers; public transit workers; teachers; school support staff members; and daycare workers.
- Phase 1C: People who are 16 to 59 years old with high-risk medical conditions (conditions include obesity, diabetes, pulmonary disease, a heart condition like high blood pressure, kidney disease, cancer, an impaired immune system, sickle cell and pregnancy); people who are 65 to 74 years old; and people who work in transportation and logistics, water and wastewater, food service, housing construction, finance, information technology, communications, energy, legal services, media, public safety and public health.
Vaccine distribution plans not yet finalized
Corona, of the Madison County Health Department, said Tuesday that state officials have estimated the first ongoing phase of vaccine distribution to health care workers and long-term care residents and workers will take four to six weeks.
The first health care workers were vaccinated Dec. 15 in Illinois. Vaccines started arriving at the state’s long-term care facilities the week of Dec. 28.
Corona said Madison County’s new survey will help health officials plan for the next phases of distribution. The information collected will give them insight into how many people in a county of over 263,000 want to be vaccinated and which priority group they may fall in when health officials receive finalized distribution plans from the state. Tweaks to the plans are expected, according to Corona.
As of 12 p.m. Tuesday, the survey had more than 11,000 responses, Corona said.
One question in the survey is designed to help Madison County plan for where to offer vaccinations. It asks if a resident attends a college or university in Madison County because the institutions may become locations of mass vaccination clinics, according to Corona.
2 vaccines authorized for use in public health emergency
In December, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized two vaccines made by drug companies for emergency use: one from Pfizer and BioNTech and the other from Moderna. It did so because “there are no adequate, approved, available alternatives” and because “the known and potential benefits of the (products) outweigh the known and potential risks,” the federal agency stated in documents for vaccine recipients.
Both vaccines have been shown to help prevent COVID-19 in clinical trials, and they continue to be studied, according to the FDA.
The vaccine side effects that trial participants reported most often were fever, headache and generally feeling unwell, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said during a press briefing. The CDC says these symptoms are signs the immune system is working.
Some people experience no symptoms from COVID-19, but the disease can have serious and sometimes life-threatening complications, according to the CDC.
More than 57,000 metro-east residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19 through testing as the new coronavirus that causes the disease has spread since March. As of Monday, total of 939 people in the region had died from COVID-19.
The region includes Madison, St. Clair, Clinton, Monroe, Randolph, Washington and Bond counties.
How will other counties share vaccine updates?
Health departments in St. Clair, Randolph and Washington counties have promised to share information with the public about when and where people can get vaccinated as they receive supplies.
St. Clair County officials provide daily updates during 3:30 p.m. briefings streamed live on the St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency’s Facebook page.
In Monroe County, the health department is using the phone and email notification system CodeRED to “assist with updates as to the order in which the vaccine will be offered to individuals,” according to a post it shared on Facebook. CodeRED is typically used to notify citizens about emergencies, including severe weather.
