Officials also announced the loosening of restrictions on alcohol sales and increased capacity for indoor fitness classes, performance venues, movie theaters and personal services. 

The Cathedral of Grace St. John AME Church hosted a coronavirus vaccination clinic for Black suburban residents as part of a larger effort to vaccinate communities disproportionately impacted by the virus. 

A senior World Health Organization official said Monday it was “premature” and “unrealistic” to think the pandemic might be stopped by the end of the year, but that the recent arrival of effective vaccines could at least help dramatically reduce hospitalizations and death.

The U.S. is getting a third vaccine to prevent COVID-19, as the Food and Drug Administration on Saturday cleared a Johnson & Johnson shot that works with just one dose instead of two.

U.S. health advisers endorsed a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson on Friday, putting the nation on the cusp of adding an easier-to-use option to fight the pandemic.

No new cases of two COVID-19 variants believed to be more transmissible have been discovered in Illinois in the past seven days, according to data released Thursday by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Federal and state officials will open a mass vaccination site at the United Center on March 10 that could administer an additional 6,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine per day, officials announced Friday.

Socially distant seating, mask mandates and temperature checks will be in place at many venues, but some experts remain concerned about community spread and the threat of more contagious variants of COVID-19. 

Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine offers strong protection against severe COVID-19, according to an analysis released Wednesday by U.S. regulators that sets the stage for a final decision on a new and easier-to-use shot to help tame the pandemic.

Illinois will soon be able to ramp up its vaccination effort. “Things are getting better,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday. “This pandemic will end, but in the meantime, we have to mask up, help each other out and we’ll get through this together.”

U.S. residents can expect to live one year less, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that uses data from the first half of 2020. That decrease in average life expectancy is even steeper in Black and Latino communities. 

At half a million, the toll recorded by Johns Hopkins University is already greater than the population of Miami or Kansas City, Missouri. It is roughly equal to the number of Americans killed in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. It is akin to a 9/11 every day for nearly six months.

You’re fully vaccinated against the coronavirus — now what? Don’t expect to shed your mask and get back to normal activities right away. That’s going to be a disappointment, if not a shock, to many people. 

Since the COVID-19 vaccination effort began on Dec. 15 in Chicago, 18% of Chicagoans who got at least the first shot are Latino, while 19% are Black, according to data released Friday by the Chicago Department of Public Health.

Twenty-two more cases of a COVID-19 variant first discovered in the United Kingdom that is believed to be more transmissible have been discovered in Illinois in the past seven days, according to data released Thursday by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Inspectors found 27 people in the Chinese restaurant on the day before Valentine’s Day not wearing masks or following social distancing rules, according to a statement from the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection.