By: Mark Glennon
All trends for COVID-19 continue to look very good in Illinois, but more lives would be saved if more of the vaccine were going to those who are doing most of the dying – the elderly.
We wrote last month about why the expansion of permitted line jumpers defied common sense. Now, the numbers are coming in to prove it.
Despite being eligible to get vaccinated, the overwhelming number of deaths from COVID-19 continue to be the elderly: Over the past 30 days, 88% of COVID deaths have been age 60 or over, which is the same proportion as we saw before the vaccine.
Part of the reason why is simple: The elderly have gotten just 44% of the vaccines administered.
Eighty-eight percent of the deaths, but just 44% of the vaccines. Those numbers alone are enough to raise hard questions.
Before we get to what might be done, here are the details:
IDHP, the Illinois Department of Public Health, provides daily numbers on the age categories for COVID deaths. We added them up for the last 30 days to compile the chart shown here. The exceptionally high concentration of deaths for those over 60 – 88% – is substantially unchanged since the start of the pandemic.
The IDHP itself provides the numbers on vaccinations actually administered, only 44% of which are going to those over age 65. There is some imprecision because the death category provided by IDHP starts at age 60, though its vaccination category starts at age 65. That should not make much difference, however, because, among other reasons, deaths are far more concentrated in higher age groups, as shown.
IDHP also provides the number of people now eligible to get vaccinated, which it categorizes as 1A and 1B. Those age 65 and up comprise about half of that group – 1,900,000 people. We have excluded residents of long-term care facilities in that calculation because they were separately vaccinated with a special allocation of the vaccine.
Why has the vaccine gone in such low proportions to the elderly?
Part of the discrepancy is sensible, but some is not, and the difficulty the elderly face in getting an appointment for vaccination remains utterly inexcusable.
It’s entirely appropriate that healthcare workers got first priority as group 1A. They typically have exceptionally close and frequent contact with large numbers of people, putting both themselves and those they contact at high risk, and their work is truly essential.
The same can be said for some members in group 1B.
However, group 1B includes many who face virtually no risk whatsoever from COVID. Even if they got infected, their chances of mortality are one in 5,000 for those age 20-49, according to the Center for Disease Control.
Then there are the 1.2 million Illinoisans who already had reported cases. They are substantially immune, at least in the short-term, but still eligible for vaccination if they are in group 1A or 1B.
At a very minimum, why not encourage young, healthy people – especially young people who were already infected – to delay getting vaccinated until those who are truly at risk of death are made safe?
Governor JB Pritzker himself set a commendable precedent. He said he will not get his first shot now but will wait his turn – as if he weren’t an elected official – as a means of setting an example. That got little press. Why isn’t it policy? Why isn’t at least voluntary deferral being encouraged? Yes, everybody should eventually get vaccinated but whose who face ridiculously low risk should let others go first.
But the City of Chicago has launched a program under which all residents 18 or older in “high vulnerability” neighborhoods can get immediately vaccinated. Prioritizing, in some fashion, neighborhoods where the pandemic has hit hardest makes sense, buy why include everybody? Even in those neighborhoods, priority should be going to the individuals most at risk.
Teachers have been the among the most brazen line jumpers, demanding blanket priority from the start, irrespective of whether they face any special risk.
Most infuriating of all are politicians. Both state and federal lawmakers have been given priority, no questions asked.
What is probably the primary reason why the elderly are not getting vaccinated has been inexcusable from the start. The absurd hunt-and-peck system for getting an appointment is impossible for many of the elderly to navigate. News reports on that appear daily, and most everybody has their own stories to share. Here’s just one: Next to me in a Walgreens pharmacy desk line this week was an elderly gentleman, probably in his eighties, asking how he can sign up for a vaccine. He got the standard answer: Go on the internet and pound away for hours and maybe you will find an opening somewhere. He had little idea what was being said and probably no capacity to do that. Merely going into a store to get answers is risky for somebody his age, and the useless answer he got will only increase his risk.
From the start, both state and federal COVID policy were flawed for failing to target those truly at risk, which are the elderly. That failure is now being repeated with vaccination priorities, and the consequence will be that more will die.
Read more about COVID in Illinois:
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
“Illinois elderly still dying of COVID in vast disproportion to others, showing many vaccines are going to the wrong people”
Duh! The entire point of ‘equity’ is to kill off elderly white Republicans voters earlier! Of course Democrats will deny this is the case, but it’s the truth.
When are people going to wake up and realize that the “vaccines” are meant to kill people. Pritzker says he’ll wait his turn…Bless his heart. The man speaks with forked tongue. He knows the jab is meant to kill. If he does get the “vaccine” (which is gene therapy in reality), it will be a placebo. You really think a global elite who is with all the other global elites ushering in United Nations Agenda 21/Agenda 2030 initiatives and the New World Order would actually take the very poison they’re using on us? Wake up people! But go ahead and… Read more »
This you Oswego Willy?
The elderly die in higher rates, so what? What percent of cancer deaths are 60 or over? What percent of heart disease deaths are 60 or over? Good grief !
Let’s add the CPS teachers, who are at home and not even in school, to those sucking up the supply. They needed the vaccine before the elderly WHY?? For those trips to Puerto Rico?
Behold, the disingenuous nature of newspeak: In order to have a proper vaccine, this SARS virus has to have been isolated. One year in, it still hasn’t. What this is is experimental gene therapy brought to you by none other than Bill Gates. The same Bill Gates who pushed common core. Wake up, folks.
There was another west side school vaccine give away this weekend that included anyone regardless of age. All permanent victim class invited. And this was justified by Arwady based on community need. Why is this allowed when elderly are dying?
Our neighbors’ 25 year-old son, employed from home, works for a company deemed to be “essential worker” engineering firm. Son got a Covid shot; parents can’t. Where’s the logic here? Way way way too much political correctness and muddled-thinking governance in these Pritzker and Federal directives.
Vaccines are prioritized to the permanent victim class to get south, west side black and Latino votes for the democratic voting block. They are not interested in elderly people who are primarily white. And any black or Latino who walks into a vaccine site is taken care of regardless of age. This is Lori’s get back at white people plan. .