Thread by @BauerJournalism

Dr. Allison Arwady, head of the Chicago Department of Public Health, has a COVID-19 update for the city at 1 p.m. I'll live tweet.

Follow for updates and let me know if you have questions.

blockclubchicago.org/2021/04/13/cor…

You can watch here: pscp.tv/w/1djGXqndEbNJZ

Arwady: "We continue to see increases in Chicago, in our case rates, our positivity rate, our emergency department, our hospitalizations and our ICUs. However, we are seeing those increases slow."

Averaging 691 new cases of COVID per day. High-risk territory.

Arwady: "Still a concern, still definitely need people wearing masks, social distancing, not taking unnecessary risks and being very careful with gathering unless everybody in the group is fully vaccinated."

Arwady: You can see new cases are up, but it's "much, much lower" than the peak of the second surge.

Arwady: "What is driving this? Very much younger adults."

18-29 and then people in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

Only groups we're not seeing increases in are people in 60s+, reflecting higher vaccination rates. She says they might also be taking more care.

Arwady: "For most of this surge," we saw disproportionate increases in white Chicagoans, but now we're seeing growth among Black and Latino Chicagoans. This is widespread. ...

"Broadly, no matter who you are or where you are in Chicago, COVID is on the rise. We're vaccinating people as quickly as we can. But in the meantime, we need people practicing caution."

Arwady: Hospitalizations for Chicago residents. They're on the increase, but it hasn't been dramatic at this point.

Arwady: We're tracking breakthrough cases "very closely." Those are people who are completely vaccinated but who get COVID. "We have seen some cases of COVID in this individuals, but it's very rare."

Arwady: And those haven't turned into people needing to be hospitalized or dying. Broadly, the vaccines remain very safe and protective.

Arwady: They're monitoring closely but are reassured the vaccines work well for the most vulnerable folks, and we remain in reasonable control of our health care system.

Arwady: 62% of Chicagoans 65+ have gotten at least a first dose of vaccine. 47% have completed their vaccinations.

46% of Chicagoans 18+ have gotten at least a first dose. Just over a quarter have completed their vaccinations.

Arwady now talking about Johnson & Johnson.

blockclubchicago.org/2021/04/13/joh…

Arwady: A reported six women (out of nearly 7 million Americans who have gotten J&J) got blood clots/low platelets. "We are not aware of any local cases of this in Chicago or in Illinois."

Arwady: There are 78 providers in the city of Chicago outside the city's operations that have got J&J in the past two weeks. Much were small shipments of ~100 doses.

"We've instructed all of them to put a pause on administering Johnson & Johnson vaccine while ...

"this investigation is underway."

Over 47,000 Chicagoans have gotten a J&J vaccine, with 43,000 administered in the city.

They intended to administer ~13,000 doses in the city this week. Those are on hold and being rescheduled.

Arwady: They're changing Chicago State University to Pfizer. People can keep their appointments as scheduled. They'll get Pfizer instead of J&J. They'll scheduled second doses.

Arwady: They already emailed all registered folks to tell them about the change. They should arrive as planned.

Arwady: Homebound program was using J&J. "We've decided to pause all homebound operations at least until Monday, April 19." They called the people who had been scheduled.

blockclubchicago.org/2021/04/08/hom…

Arwady: United Center was scheduled to change to J&J on April 20. "We continue to vaccinate with Pfizer at this point, and we are waiting to hear from FEMA on their intended plans for vaccination. ... We have not yet heard what the plan there is."

Arwady: "Vaccine safety remains our absolute top priority, but reiterating this is a rare but severe type of blood clot. And I fully support the decision of the CDC and the FDA to recommend this pause while they're understanding the event."

Arwady: CDPH will watch when ACIP meets tomorrow.

Arwady: "No. 1, I care, we all care the most about confidence in vaccine safety. I think the fact that this decision was made to put J&J on pause for me is a signal of how strongly we ... consider that in this country. I know it was a difficult and fairly quickly-made decision...

"at the federal level, but I hope people will take this as I take it, to be a sign that if there is even a safety signal — a concern there could be an issue here — first and foremost we look to pause, we look to understand that ... .

"And then once the full investigation is done, we're transparent about if there need to be changes with this vaccine moving forward, we'll do that.

"... We've seen no concerns of this related to Pfizer or Moderna in 180 million doses being given ... ."

Arwady: She worries people will have decreased confidence/more worries about potential side effects. "I would ask people to have a little bit of patience here, to trust that the reason this pause is on is because we want to fully understand these rare events ... ."

Arwady: "I am concerned because I know people will have concern when they hear this. We want — getting Chicago past COVID, getting the U.S. past COVID, means getting us vaccinated. I fully support the decision, but I want to encourage people to keep their Moderna and Pfizer ...

"appointments, to keep making those appointments. And as we learn more about Johnson & Johnson, we'll be back in touch."

Arwady: City had already seen a slowdown in the amount of J&J it was getting due to manufacturing issues. This week, we were getting fewer than 5,000 doses.

...

"Of the three vaccines, it is the one that has been, by far, the one we've administered the least of, but it's been an important vaccine for us" becasue it's one shot.

Arwady: She hopes we'll be able to continue to use this vaccine, perhaps with more precautions (like excluding certain groups).

Arwady: "The first priority for this morning was to reach out to people who had J&J appointments scheduled ... because we want to make sure we're communicating what's going on there, what's the planning there."

Arwady: "If people already got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, there is nothing that they need to do differently at this point except to monitor in case they were to have these significant side effects."

The rate of this severe side effect is about 1 in 1 million.

Arwady: Statistically, she wouldn't expect anyone in Chicago to have had one of these events, but it is possible. She wants to see what ACIP recommends tomorrow.

Arwady: "This is different than the short-term side effects of just a couple of days."

People who got J&J in the past few days and have a sore arm, little bit of a headache — that's not what they're talking about.

Arwady: There is no part of the city that has not seen COVID and is not continuing to see COVID.

Arwady: "We remain very committed, as I said, to following the science on this and being very transparent about it. I want to be really clear with everybody what we know, what are we still learning, and make sure that people have that information. ...

"I definitely want people to hear how rare this is."

Arwady: "The bottom line is this vaccine, the Pfizer and the Moderna one, in particular, the safety and efficacy ... has really been unparalleled."

Arwady: "We learned about this, this morning like everybody else did."

Arwady: "We've seen huge numbers of Chicagoans taking advantage" of the Gary, Indiana, vaccination site.

Arwady: Our test positivity rate at 5.7 percent "remains quite good. I would like to have it less than 5 percent, but where I look across the South, for example ..." Alabama has a positivity rate of over 11%. That reflects that people are probably not testing unless they're ...

heavily symptomatic. COVID cases are here and on the increase, and people need to keep up good testing behavior.

Arwady: Getting a headache 24-48 hours after getting vaccinated is in no way related to the rare severe outcome associated with J&J (as far as they know for now).

Arwady: The No. 1 way we see children getting lead poisoning in the city is still lead paint.

Arwady: We are seeing more of the increased hospitalizations among people under 50, very different from what we'd seen previously.

Reflects how important vaccination has been to protecting older folks.

Press conference over.