CHICAGO (AP) - Public health officials in Illinois reported Saturday that another 127 people have died of COVID-19 an the state saw another 8,737 confirmed or probable cases.
The latest figures were released as Illinois and other states are preparing for the expected arrival next week of their first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine. Chicago area hospitals have said they expect to start delivering the vaccine to employees early next week.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said that he expects the state to receive about 109,000 doses of the vaccine within the next few weeks, with Chicago officials expecting about 20,000 to 25,000 of those doses to arrive in the city.
Meanwhile, Illinois and elsewhere around the country are bracing for a possible surge in the number of cases associated with all the traveling and gathering people did over the Thanksgiving weekend. It is not clear if that surge has arrived, but the death toll has climbed by at least 100 all but two days this month.
With the latest totals, the number of fatalities stands at 14,176 and the number of confirmed or probable cases has climbed to 841,688.
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