CHICAGO – Just as the Omicron variant is hitting Illinois, at a press conference Monday, Governor Pritzker blamed those refusing COVID vaccinations for the hospital overload he is anticipating.
“If you are unvaccinated and you get very sick, you’ll be filling a bed that would have been available for your ailing spouse or your parent or your child, or someone else’s child, someone with cancer, or a heart attack, or seriously injured in a car accident,” Pritzker told Chicago media.
UPDATE: Republican candidate for governor Darren Bailey responded to Pritzker's comment
The Illinois Department of Public Health's updated numbers (as of 12/26/21) show hospital beds and ventilators numbers as:
Governor Pritzker warned that unvaccinated Illinoisans would be blamed if a crisis would be declared.
“If we are forced to move to a crisis standard of care in our hospitals, it will be because massive numbers of unvaccinated people chose to let others go without quality care, (and) even more people will die," he said.
As for the number of variants and the determining factor in care and concerns, the IDPH as of Monday afternoon (12/27/2021) reports Delta is still the predominant variant in Illinois:
The Illinois Department of Public Health's numbers fluctuate as they obtain data.
Wirepoints.com puts together a chart of the most recent numbers:
Wirepoints also posted a chart of how the fully-vaccinated Illinoisans are distributed as of Dec 27, 2021:
