Five staff members at a health clinic that serves Chicago’s Latino community became the first Chicagoans to get the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Monday.

Amid a weekslong surge in new COVID-19 cases in Illinois that has prompted tightened restrictions and warnings not to travel during the holiday season, public health data shows a dip in the number of cases and tests in the days following Christmas.

The U.S. is the latest country to announce new travel restrictions because of a new variant of the coronavirus that is spreading in Britain and elsewhere.

United Airlines on Thursday became the fourth major airline with routes between London and the New York metropolitan area to require passengers show proof they have been tested negative recently for the novel coronavirus.

Despite warnings from public health experts to stay home, over 1.19 million travelers passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints Wednesday — the highest one-day total since the crisis took hold in mid-March.

“We ask that IDPH acknowledge the high risk of COVID-19 exposure for people living in all forms of state custody and the staff who work with them and prioritize them for vaccinations,” dozens of groups wrote in a letter to state health officials.

Millions of Americans are traveling ahead of Christmas and New Year’s, despite pleas from public health experts that they stay home to avoid fueling the raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 320,000 nationwide.

More than 100,991 Illinois residents have gotten an initial dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, leading the nation, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday.

Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said the additional doses will bring their total current commitment to 200 million doses for the U.S. That should be enough to vaccinate 100 million people with the two-shot regimen.

Just days before Christmas, a trio of high-profile doctors, including U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, made a plea for people to follow public health measures designed to stop the spread of COVID-19, even as two vaccines are being distributed across the U.S.

Nursing homes have been hit especially hard by the pandemic. One Chicago-based foundation is trying to change the way these facilities are ranked — a move they say will put the focus on the care of residents.

Experts say employers can require employees to take safety measures, including vaccination, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you would get fired if you refuse.

Final mortality data for this year will not be available for months. But preliminary numbers suggest that the United States is on track to see more than 3.2 million deaths this year, or at least 400,000 more than in 2019.

The advisory urging Chicagoans at stay home in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for 21 days, expiring the day before the first Chicago Public Schools students are set to go back to in-person class.

Reports from Britain and South Africa of new coronavirus strains that seem to spread more easily are causing alarm, but virus experts say it’s unclear if that’s the case or whether they pose any concern for vaccines or cause more severe disease. 

The president-elect took a dose of Pfizer vaccine Monday at a hospital not far from his Delaware home, hours after his wife, Jill Biden, did the same. The injections came the same day that a second vaccine, produced by Moderna, will start arriving in states.