Vaccine Shipments Not Delayed, Hospitals 'Excited': Pritzker

ILLINOIS — While the first Illinoisans were vaccinated Tuesday, several Chicago-area hospitals said their shipment of vaccines were delayed. At his news briefing Tuesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the vaccines were not delayed — some hospitals may have just been overly excited.

"They're not delayed. In fact, there was no delivery scheduled for any of them for (Tuesday)," Pritzker said. "There was no delay to any of them."

Pritzker said cities got their shipments directly, and states also received their shipments.

"Remember that in the state of Illinois we have not only the 50 counties which are the priority who have had the highest numbers of death per capita and their hospitals that are nearby, but 96 local public health departments that need to receive their separate shipments," Pritzker said.

He said the shipments come into the state and then have to be repackaged to go to the regional hospital coordination centers. The local public health departments then pick them up and bring them to their counties and distribute them appropriately or give them to the hospitals.

"[The hospitals were] overly excited," Pritzker said, when a reporter asked about a hospital which said they had deliveries scheduled which were delayed.

NorthShore University HealthSystem, which has several hospitals in the northern suburbs, said in a statement that its vaccines were delayed and that it was working with five different public health departments to coordinate its shipment.

The Chicago Tribune also reported that Elmhurst Hospital and Edward Hospital in Naperville said their deliveries of vaccines were pushed back.

"There will be distributions over the course of the week," Pritzker said. "(Wednesday), there will be no doubt lots of people getting their vaccines pushed into the arms of hospital and health care workers."