Prairie State Wire

Through the first week of March, Illinois had only fully vaccinated 6.8 percent of its residents, leaving the state ranking near the bottom across the country.

Data shows as of March 5, the state ranked 46th in the country with under 7 percent of residents having been fully vaccinated, compared with at least seven other states where figures topped 10 percent.

“We need to ask everybody for continued patience and I think we are all frustrated because we would like to get vaccinated today,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said during a recent stop in Aurora.

Illinois Rising Action president Kayleen Carlson said the time has come and gone for all the talk and the state simply needs to do better.

“Watching this vaccine rollout has kind of been a total mess,” she said “Gov. Pritzker has continued his practice of shifting blame onto others for his administration’s failures.”

Meanwhile, Pritzker says there simply aren’t enough vaccines to go around, though President Joe Biden has recently insisted he expects all adults to be able to receive to the vaccine by the end of May.

Government officials recently approved the Johnson& Johnson vaccine as the third in the country with clearance and Pritzker said he expects at least 100,000 does of it to arrive in the coming days.