COVID-19 Chicago 2024: As late-summer surge continues, health experts urge residents to get vaccinated anew

CHICAGO (WLS) — Chicago continues to see a surge in COVID-19 cases following the end of the summer.

Healthcare officials say more people are being diagnosed in emergency rooms, but new COVID vaccines are arriving in pharmacies.

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Events like the Democratic and Republican national conventions in Chicago and Milwaukee, respectively, are among the large indoor summer gatherings held amid rising COVID-19 case numbers.

“Unfortunately, the Democratic National Convention took place during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic this summer,” said Dr. Emily Landon, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Chicago Medicine.

Between Aug. 11 and 17, 2.5% of emergency room patients were diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

This is up from 1.7% during the same period in July.

Chicago is seeing a similar increase.

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“If you’ve had a respiratory virus in the last month or so, it probably was COVID, whether you got tested or not. That means we’re seeing more hospitalizations and more patients getting sick,” Landon said.

“There’s a lot of travel going on in the lead-up to summer events, which is a great opportunity for viral illnesses to spread,” said Alexander Sloboda, medical director of the Chicago Department of Public Health’s immunization and emergency response program.

Over the weekend, CVS Pharmacy began making available a new COVID-19 vaccine for 2024-2025 that aims to prevent complications and severe illness.

Patients can schedule a COVID vaccine appointment at their local CVS or come in person.

Medical experts are urging Chicagoans to take advantage of the new vaccine if they haven’t had COVID-19 recently.

“We encourage anyone over six months,” Sloboda said.

“Even if you didn’t have COVID this summer, there’s still a lot of it out there. And half of the people who are right now at the peak haven’t had COVID yet. So you’d better take precautions. Just be a little bit extra careful,” Landon said.

The challenge in tracking COVID cases is that so many people are tested at home and their illness never progresses to the point where they require emergency care, so they go unreported.

Medical experts urge people to stay home if they have any respiratory illness and to wear a mask if they have symptoms when returning to activities.