The number of vaccinations administered in one day in Illinois saw a record spike Tuesday. The state reported 53,628 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered Tuesday, the highest reported one-day total to date. It was more than 25,000 doses higher than were administered the day prior and almost 20,000 more than were administered the previous seven days on average.  

Gov. JB Pritzker said Wednesday while touring a vaccine site in Lake County he was encouraged by President Joe Biden's efforts to escalate vaccine production nationwide. The Biden administration announced an increase in weekly allocations to states starting next week, from about 8.6 million doses total to a minimum of 10 million doses over the next three weeks. Biden also secured a deal with drug companies Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to purchase an additional 200 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the summer.

Despite the potential increase in manufacturing of the vaccine, Pritzker said there is no guarantee that every Illinois resident will be vaccinated by the summer. The New York Times compiled data that shows what percentage of state populations have been vaccinated, and as of Wednesday, Illinois ranked 44th at 4.7 percent of people having received the first dose of the vaccine. The data also shows that Illinois has only used 48 percent of the doses of the vaccine it has received. Pritzker said the federal government’s delay in the Pharmacy Partnership Program for long-term care facilities is partially to blame, considering an allotment of the state’s doses are required to go towards this program and can’t otherwise be touched.

A total of nearly 1.8 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine have been delivered to the state. Of this total, 537,050 doses have been allocated for long-term care facilities through a partnership with nationwide pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens. The Illinois Department of Public Health is reported 773,623 vaccines have been administered as of Wednesday, including 117,983 for long-term care facilities.

That means about 52 percent of the shots distributed to the state and Chicago have been administered, while 22 percent distributed to the partnership program have been administered.