One year after COVID-19 vaccines first became available, a little more than half of Tri-County residents are fully vaccinated, and Peoria City/County Health Department Administrator Monica Hendrickson says that is driving the region’s most significant surge in cases since the spring.
“I can't fully digest what is still preventing people from recognizing the fact that we are in this scenario because of unvaccination,” Hendrickson said during Thursday’s weekly health briefing. “It's really hard to digest.”
The latest figures from the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) show 54.35% of Tri-County residents are fully vaccinated and 58.4% of individuals have received at least one dose. Hendrickson thinks those figures should be much higher.
“There are no words to describe this,” she said. “I would understand if we were in a situation where we had limited vaccinations,” she said. “I would understand if we were in a situation where testing just dropped off the face of the earth, and we didn't even have treatment capacities. But we do.”
Hendrickson said new cases in the Tri-County have been growing by about 25% each week, with 2,030 new cases in the past seven days, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 62,150. Fifteen fatalities since last Thursday increased the death toll since March of last year to 895.
“Our positivity rates keep climbing in our community, and it's really is wreaking havoc on our health care and public health systems,” said Hendrickson. “The last time we saw numbers like this was in March, right around the St. Patrick’s Day holiday.
“What's concerning is this is on the upward tick. We don't know if we're going to see a plateau and (then) going back down or, because of this time of year, that we are putting ourselves in a path to see what we did this time last year — continuing increases of cases.”
Active COVID-19 cases in the region climbed to 2,579, including 64 patients in Peoria-area hospitals. With winter weather and the flu season here, 89% of the area’s intensive care unit beds are currently in use.
“That's what makes this nerve-racking in the position we are. To only have 11% of our ICU beds available ... going into a season where we have higher respiratory illnesses, it is very concerning,” said Hendrickson.
“I cannot stress how severe (of a situation) we are in right now. Cases cannot keep going up at this rate. We have a solution. It's scientifically based, it is data-driven, and yet we only have 55.16% of our county fully vaccinated.”
Hendrickson said no particular group is more responsible for the surge than people who haven’t gotten their shots.
“That's the demographic now. It's not a certain age range; it’s the fact that they are not vaccinated,” she said, adding there has been some consideration about taking unorthodox measures to persuade people to get shots.
“It literally does keep me up at night to try to understand what the hesitancy is and what approach we're not taking, and how we need to be reaching out,” she said. “At one point, we suggested, ‘Do we literally go door-to-door-to-door with a group of clinicians because that is the only way someone will have a conversation with a reliable source about the importance of vaccinations?’”
Hendrickson said that while she can understand resistance to government-mandated shots, she noted that nearly everyone was required to get polio vaccines as children. She also said despite occasional breakthrough cases, the vaccines have proven to be effective and have not produced any severe side effects.
“I do hope that people take heed this holiday season, recognize that instead of giving someone the next iPad or giving someone you (know) that type of materialistic gift, the best thing you can give each other is to get out of this pandemic — and to do so is to get vaccinated,” she said.
