When will life in Illinois return to normal? Where are people catching COVID-19?

During Sunday’s daily briefing, St. Clair County officials had a question and answer session covering various COVID-19 topics.

St. Clair County Health Department Emergency Response Coordinator Sam Bierman and St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern handled the Q&A session.

Question: For the second dose, do you need to wait for the confirmation text or can you go ahead and sign up on the website?

Bierman: “You can go ahead and sign up on the website yourself. Do keep in mind, though, that our schedule normally only goes out between five and seven days. So if you have more than seven days for the time frame that you need to meet to get your second vaccine, you won’t be able to sign up yet. But when you do hit that time frame, yes, you are more than welcome to go on the website and sign up yourself for your second dose.”

Question: Were any of the COVID variants detected in St. Clair County?

Bierman: “No, none yet. We have tested some, but we have had no variant confirmations in St. Clair County at this time.”

Question: In the past month, in what kind of settings are people getting COVID? Is it still home from family and friends or have we seen any changes?

Bierman: “It’s been still consistently home, family gatherings, public gatherings and being out in the public.”

Question: Can a person who is already fully vaccinated get another vaccine from a different manufacturer? So, for instance, if they have the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can they now go get the Pfizer vaccine to make themselves double protected?

Bierman: “We do not recommend that. All the data that has come from all of the vaccine companies so far has said, if you get your first one Pfizer, get your second one Pfizer. Same with Moderna. And, then of course, Johnson & Johnson is just a single shot.”

Question: Will you offer vaccine clinics at local high schools?

Bierman: “At this time, no, we do not have any clinics planned to go to high schools.”

Question: Cases and hospitalization numbers are going up statewide. Should we expect new mitigations?

Kern: “I don’t believe we should expect new mitigations unless things change drastically. It seems to me that, really, what we probably can expect is we won’t be able to get back to normal as quickly as we had all hoped. We thought that perhaps by the end of April, that we might get a few more restrictions loosened. But it appears because of numbers elsewhere in Illinois — not here — that perhaps we’ll be slowing down the full opening.”

Kern offers high marks for St. Clair County

To conclude Sunday’s briefing, Kern praised St. Clair County for improving COVID metrics.

Of note, county officials noted Sunday marked the third-straight day no county residents were on a ventilator due to COVID. Additionally, according to data released by the Illinois Department of Public Health on Sunday, St. Clair County’s daily positivity rate stood at 1.3% and the seven-day rolling average was 3.2%.

“Team St. Clair has done a great job,” Kern said. “If you remember, we were the highest in the state for quite a long period of time. Now, because people are taking advantage of the vaccine process, they’re getting vaccinated, they’re following the rules ... we see our numbers really at a fairly decent level given what we’re seeing some of our counterparts have. I’m proud of Team St. Clair.

“Let’s just keep it up. Let’s get rid of this thing. Let’s just eradicate COVID in St. Clair County and in the state and we all get back to where we need to be.”