When can I get a COVID vaccine appointment in southwest IL? Get answers to your questions
Many people in the metro-east who are eligible to receive their COVID-19 shots are still waiting to get their first dose due to the speed at which the vaccine is being provided to the state and region.
Because doses are limited, vaccination appointments are, too. But a vaccine boost is expected soon, according to federal officials.
What’s being done to speed up the process and when will more people be able to get their vaccine?
Here are answers to questions you may have about the COVID-19 vaccine roll out in southwestern Illinois:
Q: Who is eligible for vaccination?
A. While supplies are limited, only select groups are eligible to receive the vaccine at this time.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made recommendations to states about how they could decide to prioritize people based on their risk of exposure to the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and their risk of severe illness from the disease.
Frontline health care workers and long-term care facility residents and staff members became eligible in Illinois’ first round of phased distribution, called Phase 1A. People in that group who opted out can still get the vaccine in future phases, if they change their minds.
Phase 1B started Jan. 25 statewide. Vaccinations in this group are by appointment only. The following people are eligible in 1B:
People who are 65 years old and older
Firefighters
Law enforcement officers
911 workers
Security personnel
Teachers, principals and school support staff members
Daycare workers
Food and agriculture workers
Manufacturing workers
Corrections workers and inmates
U.S. Postal Service workers
Public transit workers, including those who work for ride-sharing services
Grocery store workers
Staff members at homeless shelters and women’s shelters
Q. When will the general population be allowed to get a shot? Will it be in the summer or fall?
A. It isn’t clear when metro-east counties will begin vaccinating the general public but officials in several counties say the vaccination of the current eligible 1B group will take at least a few more months. The 1B population includes people 65 years or older, first responders and some educators.
Vaccination of the general public will occur in Phase 2, which comes after the vaccination of the 1B and 1C groups.
Officials in Madison County said it will take a “few months” to vaccinate the estimated 50,000 members of the 1B vaccination group in their county.
County Health Department Director Toni Corona said Friday the county hopes to vaccinate 2,500 people a day in the coming weeks, meaning it would take roughly 40 days to vaccinate the entire 1B population.
So far 3,915 Madison County residents have been fully vaccinated, or 1.48% of the 262,900 people who live in the county.
Randolph County Health Department Administrator Angel Oathout said vaccinating the entire 1B group in her county would take about two months . Oathout said she doesn’t know when 1C vaccinations will begin and said it largely depended on the number of vaccines the county receives as time goes on.
In St. Clair County, officials said there is no current estimation on how long 1B vaccinations would take. However, the county is currently vaccinating roughly 960 people a day, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. An estimate on how many people are in the 1B population group wasn’t available.
The state says the next vaccination group will be 1C and will include people 16 to 64 years old with high-risk conditions including obesity, diabetes, heart conditions, pulmonary disease, kidney disease, cancer, pregnancy, sickle cell anemia and other people who are immunocompromised.
The state is planning each next stage of the vaccination process as the current stage takes place, meaning 1C vaccinations are being planned now. When 1C begins further planning for Phase 2 will begin.
The 1C group will also include more essential workers.
According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, that includes people who work in transportation and logistics, food service, construction, finance, information technology and communications, energy, media, legal, public safety, water and wastewater and public health workers.
In Phase 2, the Illinois Department of Public Health says the state and counties will focus on vaccinating the rest of the general population and anyone who did not get their vaccines during the earlier stages. As more vaccines become available, the state will get closer to Phase 2, according to the state plan.
However, the state has not pinpointed or set a goal for when Phase 2 might begin.
Q. Can I set up an appointment with my significant other?
A. It depends. In Madison and St. Clair counties, when you are contacted to set up your appointment, it’s possible that if you fall into the same vaccination group and signed up at the same time as your significant other that you could schedule your appointments for the same time.
However, St. Clair County Health Department Emergency Response Coordinator Sam Bierman said in St. Clair County it largely depends on when you and your partner sign up for the vaccine, as the county works in a chronological order.
Q. How do I set up an appointment for a shot?
A. As of Feb. 4, six local Walgreens locations are setting up appointments for those eligible in Phases 1A or 1B, according to the state’s vaccine locator at coronavirus.illinois.gov. The locations are:
5890 North Belt West in Belleville
6505 N. Illinois St. in Fairview Heights
704 Cambridge Blvd. in O’Fallon
401 Belt Line Road in Collinsville
102 W. Vandalia St. in Edwardsville
1650 Washington Ave. in Alton
Anyone in the metro-east who is eligible to receive the vaccine can set up a vaccination appointment with Walgreens online at walgreens.com/findcare/vaccination/covid-19. You’ll have to create an online account. The pharmacy isn’t setting up appointments over the phone.
Local health departments and hospitals are also facilitating appointments.
These are the ways to let a county health department or hospital know you want to set up a COVID-19 vaccine appointment:
St. Clair County: County residents can fill out the COVID-19 Notification for Vaccine Availability form online at health.co.st-clair.il.us to be added to the vaccine waitlist. (If you don’t have internet access or need help signing up, call the health department at 618-825-4447.)
In East St. Louis, residents 65 years and older can call the East Side Health District at 618-271-8722 to make an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine.
Madison County: The health department has launched an online appointment scheduler on its website at https://www.co.madison.il.us/departments/health where people who did not fill out the county’s vaccine survey in January can schedule their appointments. As of Friday, all appointments were filled. Limited appointments are available, and County Health Department Director Toni Corona said more dates and appointments as resources and doses are available. Those without computer access should call 618-650-8445.
Clinton County: County residents and people who work in the county can fill out the Clinton County, IL Health Department COVID-19 Vaccine Registry online at clintoncountyhealth.com or call the health department at 618-594-6622 to be added to the vaccine waitlist. (The waitlist is currently only for people who are eligible in phases 1A or 1B. You don’t need to fill out the form if you already called to get on the waitlist.)
Monroe County: County residents can sign up for the phone and email alert system CodeRED. Notifications will include the date and time of the county’s vaccination clinics, as well as which residents are eligible to seek appointments.
Randolph County: County residents can call the health department at 618-826-5007 to be added to the vaccine waitlist. (The waitlist is currently only for residents who are 65 years old or older.)
Bond County: County residents and people who work in the county can fill out the Bond County, IL Health Department COVID-19 Vaccine Registry online at bchd.us to be added to the vaccine waitlist. (The waitlist is currently only for people who are eligible in phases 1A or 1B. You do not need to fill out the form if you already called the health department to get on the waitlist.)
Washington County: Call the health department at 618-327-3644 to be added to the vaccine waitlist. (The waitlist is currently only for residents who are 65 years old or older.)
BJC HealthCare: Preregistration for a vaccination appointment is available online at bjc.org/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccines. You don’t have to be a current patient of BJC HealthCare to get vaccinated, but you do have to be a resident of either Illinois or Missouri. BJC will contact people to set up appointments when they become eligible and when supplies are available. The hospital system notes on its website that “it could be several weeks, or even months, before you are able to schedule.”
Red Bud Regional Hospital: People eligible for vaccination who live or work in Randolph County can join the hospital’s vaccine waitlist online at redbudanytime.com.
Memorial Hospital in Chester: Patients of the hospital’s clinics who are eligible for vaccination can sign up for the vaccine waitlist online at mhchester.com/covidvax.
Q. What exactly should I expect when I visit the vaccination center at Belle-Clair Fairgrounds?
A. St. Clair County recently opened a mass vaccination site at the Belle-Clair Fairgrounds. If you are scheduled to receive a vaccine dose at the fairgrounds, here’s how it might go.
The Belle-Clair Fairgrounds has two options for vaccinations: a drive-thru site and an indoor site for people who aren’t able to drive themselves.
For the drive-thru, enter the fairgrounds from S. Belt E — there are police or national guardsmen at the entrance. From there, you will be directed to the first of two check-in stops.
At the first, they’ll check your ID to make sure you qualify for the current phase of vaccination roll-out. Then you’ll drive up to the second, where you’ll receive the vaccine record card you’ll need for your second dose and they’ll get your consent to be vaccinated.
Finally, you’ll be directed to the third stop, where you’ll be vaccinated in your car. Up to 15 cars can be vaccinated at once. When weather permits, a second lane will be created to increase capacity, according to staff.
After vaccination, you’ll have to wait at least 15 minutes to be monitored for any adverse effects. Depending on your health history, including any reactions to other vaccines, you may have to be monitored for 30 minutes. Your car will be marked appropriately, and then you’ll be directed to the right part of the parking lot, depending on your wait time.
After the monitoring time is complete, you’ll be able to leave the Fairgrounds.
Q. I keep getting a busy signal on the St. Clair County health department phone line, and I can’t use the computer to make my appointment. What do I do?
A. St. Clair County officials launched the call center in late January for people who need help signing up for the county’s vaccine notification list. Once you sign up for the list, the county notifies you when you are eligible to arrange an appointment for a vaccination.
The county health department will reach out to people who are eligible via email or phone to schedule an appointment to be vaccinated. The health department will either set up appointments over the phone or through a link provided in an email, which will lead to a scheduling website.
The call center can be reached at 618-825-4447 and runs Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency Director Herb Simmons said the call line is getting a massive amount of calls. Since it opened, the center’s seven employees have taken about 3,000 calls.
He said some callers may get a busy tone due to the number of calls coming into the center, a problem the county hopes to alleviate in the coming days through a request for additional lines from AT&T. If you receive a busy signal, hang up and try calling in the next few minutes.
Q. When do I come back for my second shot?
A. The timing of your second shot depends on which shot you received. According to the FDA, if you receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, you will be scheduled to receive your second dose 21 days after your first dose. For the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, a second dose is administered 28 days later.
What vaccine you get varies from day-to-day in counties throughout Illinois and depends on what vaccine is provided by IDPH on that day.
Q. Once I have both shots, is it safe for me not to wear a mask or social distance?
A. No, you need to continue to wear a mask and to social distance. According to the Center for Disease Control, masks need to be worn for the time being as not enough information is available to determine how likely COVID-19 is to transfer between people after receiving both doses of vaccine.
Officials in St. Clair County have continuously asked for people who have been vaccinated to continue wearing a mask. County Chairman Mark Kern said keeping virus spread down is a key part of the vaccination process.
To protect yourself and others, follow these recommendations from the CDC:
Wear a mask over your nose and mouth
Stay at least 6 feet away from others
Avoid crowds
Avoid poorly ventilated spaces
Wash your hands often
Q. I can’t drive. How can I get to my appointment?
A. In St. Clair County,the county transit district is offering rides to people who are 65 years or older and have a confirmed vaccination appointment through the health department.
People eligible for the shots will be able to take the MetroBus or MetroLink to the Belleville Transit Center. A St. Clair County Transit District Express Shuttle at the center will take riders to and from the fairgrounds. The service will run Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., starting as early as Monday, if the vaccination center is open by then.
The free transportation is being funded through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.
No similar programs have been announced in other metro-east counties.
Q. I’m eligible for the shot. Why can’t I get an appointment right now?
A. Some metro-east health officials say they are prioritizing within the large 1B group because of the limited vaccine supply they have.
Here’s the order some counties said they are scheduling appointments:
St. Clair County: People 75 years and older were first. Now, people who are 65 years and older can get appointments, according to the county.
Madison County: Individuals who are 65 years or older can be vaccinated, along with educators and first responders.
Randolph County: People who are 85 and older were first. Now, people who are 75 and older, first responders and teachers can get appointments, according to Health Department Administrator Angela Oathout. Next in line are people who are 65-74 years old, the latest COVID-19 update from the health department stated.
Monroe County: People who are 85 and older were first. Now, people who are 75 and older can get appointments, but Health Department Administrator John Wagner said Thursday they may adjust the age group getting appointments to 80 and older. Sign up for CodeRED alerts or check the health department’s Facebook page for the latest information.
Health officials said they decided to give appointments to the oldest residents first because they have a high risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19.
Q. When will that change?
A. President Biden announced two changes to the federal COVID-19 response last week to help states ramp up vaccinations and plan for appointments.
Starting “very soon,” according to President Joe Biden’s Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci, there will be a 16% increase in the weekly vaccine allotment sent to the states: from 8.6 million doses to a minimum of 10 million doses. Those doses are distributed based on each state’s population, according to Biden.
Biden’s administration is also guaranteeing a minimum amount of vaccine doses that states will receive over a three-week period.
In a recent press briefing, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said states previously weren’t told how much vaccine they were going to receive on a weekly basis until “a day or two before it was available.”
“So it’s impossible, as you can imagine, to make appointments ahead of time if you don’t know how many vaccine doses are going to be available that week,” Pritzker said.
Q. How do I spot a vaccine scam?
A. Scammers may try to take advantage of Illinoisans’ eagerness to get vaccinated by asking them for money or personal information in exchange for early access to the vaccine, authorities say.
The Illinois Attorney General’s Office encourages you to take these steps to protect yourself from vaccine scams:
Do not buy any kind of COVID-19 vaccine or treatment on the internet or from an online pharmacy.
Hang up on any calls, including robocalls, that direct you to take immediate action or provide personally-identifiable information, such as your Social Security number or bank account number.
The Better Business Bureau’s advice is to “be skeptical of anything that seems too good — or crazy — to be true.”
You can report any scams you see to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office online at ccformsubmission.ilattorneygeneral.net or by calling the consumer fraud hotline at 1-800-243-0607.
Q. How much will the vaccination cost me?
A. There is no cost for the vaccine, but providers can charge an administration fee for giving the shot to someone, according to the CDC.
That fee can be reimbursed by private insurance or, for uninsured patients, by the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Provider Relief Fund, CDC states on its website.
Q. What vaccines are available?
A. In December, the FDA 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 of the authorized vaccines require two doses administered three to four weeks apart, depending on the type of vaccine.
On Thursday, Johnson & Johnson applied for emergency approval for their one shot vaccine, according to the Associated Press.
Q. What are some common side effects of the vaccine?
A. 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 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says these symptoms are signs the immune system is working.
Q. How does that compare to the effects of COVID-19?
A. Some people experience mild illness from COVID-19 or no symptoms at all, but the disease can have potentially serious and life-threatening complications, including pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome, leading to multi-organ failure and death, according to the FDA.
Q. Is the state of Illinois tracking detailed demographic information about people who are getting the vaccine, including their race, gender and age. If not, are there plans to do so?
A. Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, led a discussion about COVID-19 vaccines for residents in the East St. Louis community and beyond during a virtual event on Thursday evening where she discussed how the state is tracking the demographics.
“Everybody who’s supposed to be giving this vaccine had to promise, it was a part of the terms of you being a COVID vaccinator, that you have to give us that information,” she said. “For every single dose that you administer, you have to give the name, date of birth, address, race, ethnicity, etc.
“We have that information and we are looking at that to see if all of our groups in the state ( are getting vaccinated),” she added. “I don’t want to create more disparity.”
Ezike said the state is trying to avoid creating more disparities for Black and brown communities that have already been under duress due to COVID-19.
“We have already seen how horribly this virus has treated Black and brown communities, and we don’t want to worsen the disparity more by not having the vaccine reach those same communities that have been hit hardest,” she said. “We don’t want to punish or coerce or force anybody (to take it), but we want to give people access to the information, ability to ask questions, hear concerns and hopefully help people make the best decision and that is to get the vaccine.”
In East St. Louis, residents 65 years and older can call the East Side Health District at 618-271-8722 to make an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine. The district’s next vaccine hub in the city will be on Wednesday, Feb. 10, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., at the Clyde C. Jordan Senior Citizen Center on 6755 State Street. Doses of the vaccine will be administered by appointment only.
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Help the BND report on COVID-19 vaccines and their distribution in southwestern Illinois. Send your questions, tips and coverage ideas to newsroom@bnd.com or 618-239-2500.
Reporters Megan Valley and DeAsia Paige contributed to this article.