USA TODAY 'Just not equal at all': Vaccine rollout in Chicago a microcosm of racial disparities nationwide

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'Just not equal at all': Vaccine rollout in Chicago a microcosm of racial disparities nationwide

CHICAGO – Angelina Zayas turned her Grace and Peace Church, which serves the greater Belmont Cragin community on the city's northwest side, into a food bank. Instead of Sunday services, she hands out winter coats and canned goods.

© Grace Hauck, USA TODAY Patients enter and exit the vaccination and testing site at Roseland Community Hospital on Chicago's far south side on Feb. 8, 2021. Many receiving vaccinations at the hospital were not locals and hailed from neighborhoods across the city. Her phone rings at all times of the day and night with grieving congregants. Often, she doesn’t know what to say.
“It’s a very hard situation, because you really don’t know how to console people in these circumstances,” said Zayas, a lifelong Chicago resident and former teacher.
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Grace and Peace is in the majority-Hispanic ZIP code 60639, which has one of the highest COVID-19 death rates in the city – and one of the lowest vaccination rates.

© Grace Hauck, USA TODAY Angelina Zayas, co-founder of the Grace and Peace community center, turned her church into a food bank on Chicago's northwest side. Just 4% of residents in the ZIP code received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of Sunday, according to data from the Chicago Department of Public Health. Similarly low vaccination rates exist in other majority-Latino and majority-Black neighborhoods across the city's south and west sides, despite COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on those populations.

A USA TODAY analysis of data from the city and the U.S. Census Bureau found that, citywide, the vaccination rate in Chicago’s majority-Black or Latino ZIP codes averaged 5%. Majority-white ZIP codes averaged 13%. Four of the city's majority-white ZIP codes exceeded 20% initial vaccination, while the highest rate for any majority Black or Latino area was 12%.
The data shows similar trends in Washington and Austin, Texas, two other cities that reported vaccination rates at the neighborhood level. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show gaping disparities nationally, and a study of the states reporting race and ethnicity for vaccine recipients showed a widespread pattern of inequity.
It’s possible some majority-white ZIP codes have higher rates of vaccination in part because they have higher concentrations of people in groups prioritized for the first round of vaccines.
Experts said the findings reflect festering systemic problems, including poor health care access and distrust of vaccines, colliding amid a chaotic rollout that failed to ensure equal access to communities of color.
“There was so much pressure on the health departments to roll out the vaccine quickly, they built up their systems as quickly as they could, but they weren’t built in a way that was necessarily equally accessible to all,” said Dr. Julie Morita, vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Ethel Walton lives in a majority-Black south side neighborhood, Auburn Gresham, in a ZIP code where just 4% of residents have received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and nearly 120 people have died. The rate of COVID-19 deaths in that ZIP code is three to four times higher than several majority-white north side neighborhoods. The vaccination rates in those white neighborhoods are six times higher.
Walton, a nurse, and president of the Chicago Chapter of the Black Nurses Association, said the disproportional suffering is disheartening. She reflected on the high death rates among Black people, remembering a friend who died after contracting the virus.
“It’s a stressful situation, because no one wants to hear that their (people are) dying of COVID in massive numbers," she said. "It's unfair that the immunization has again been made … just not equal at all.”
Walton said a huge barrier to seniors in her area is transportation. Her group has been hosting virtual question-and-answer sessions on vaccines to fight hesitancy stemming from medical injustices throughout the nation's history.
"It’s like we’re fighting an unending battle, as well as trying to overcome the myths and the misconceptions," she said.
'We need to go where the risk is highest'

The situation in Chicago reflects the slow vaccine rollout in communities of color nationwide.
Data on the topic is spotty. In a CDC study, half of the 12 million patients vaccinated through mid-January provided race or ethnicity information.
A Kaiser Family Foundation study analyzing 23 states that reported demographic data found a consistent pattern of people of color falling behind.

The CDC study urged authorities to gather better data.
“More complete reporting of race and ethnicity data at the provider and jurisdictional levels is critical to ensure rapid detection of and response to potential disparities in COVID-19 vaccination,” the authors wrote.
'It's not a pretty picture': Why the lack of racial data around coronavirus vaccines is 'massive barrier' to better distribution
Snapshots from places where more detailed information is collected support the early, incomplete national findings.
In Washington, majority-white wards receive doses at higher rates than wards that are not predominantly white, data from D.C. Health show. A similar trend is seen among ZIP codes in Texas' capital, Austin, according to data from the state analyzed by USA TODAY.
In Florida, where 16% of the population is Black, about 5% of Black residents were fully vaccinated as of Feb. 9, according to state data.
Once the center of the pandemic and its disparities, New York's dashboard shows about 5% of essential workers receiving an initial dose of vaccine are Black, and 17% of all eligible workers are Black. Seventy-four percent of essential workers receiving the vaccine are white, a number that nearly matches their share of all eligible essential workers.
Officials are rushing to increase vaccine allocations to clinics and centers that serve low-income people and communities of color.
Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of the Biden administration's COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, acknowledged Tuesday that structural barriers prevent many from accessing vaccine.
During a news briefing announcing plans to deliver more vaccine to community health centers, she said the location of vaccination sites is “critical” and nodded to the importance of establishing pharmacies in underserved communities.
“Equity is our north star here. This effort … really is about connecting with those hard-to-reach populations across the country,” Nunez-Smith said.
Communities in Chicago know all too well the impact of "pharmacy deserts," where pharmacies have closed or don't exist, making it hard for residents to adhere to medication schedules. The gap contributes to disproportionate ailments and poor health outcomes. Zayas' greater Belmont Cragin area is one of those communities.
“If pharmacies are not available in specific neighborhoods, specifically majority-minority, majority-Black or -Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago and elsewhere, you’re going to really have disparities in COVID vaccinations,” said Dima Qato, a University of Southern California School of Pharmacy professor, who led an extensive study of pharmacy deserts in Chicago.
“It’s pretty simple: If pharmacies are playing a critical role … first with testing and now it’s with COVID vaccinations, and they’re not available or accessible in minority neighborhoods, it’s not going to make it better for these neighborhoods. It could only make it worse in terms of the COVID pandemic," Qato said, adding that officials should bring vaccine into neighborhoods to remove transportation as a barrier.
Many experts point to occupational disparities concentrated at the ZIP code level.
Helene Gayle, a physician and CEO of the Chicago Community Trust, said affluent and majority-white neighborhoods have more health care workers, who were prioritized in the first phase of vaccine distribution.
“In some of the big health care systems that got access to vaccine earlier, those are also more likely to employ people who come from more affluent, more privileged ZIP codes,” Gayle said.
As the phases roll out, Gayle said officials shouldn't prioritize speed over equity.

© Grace Hauck People from across Chicago trickled in and out of Roseland Community Hospital on the city's far south side in the 12-degree weather on Feb. 5. The hospital offered COVID-19 vaccinations by appointment. “People often talk about, ‘Let's vaccinate as quickly as we possibly can,’” she said. “We can't let speed get in the way of equity. ... We want to go where the risk is highest, because that’s where this vaccine will have the greatest impact.”
About a year ago, the trust launched an initiative focused on closing racial wealth gaps and recently an equitable recovery program.
“We found that it was so core to some of the other challenges we see here in the city, in the region: education, violence, health disparities,” Gayle said. “Underlying a lot of those issues is this wealth gap that has in fact been deepened as a result of the COVID pandemic.”
Health aligns with race

The gravity of disproportionate suffering from the pandemic became apparent early on in Chicago: 70% of the city’s early deaths were among Black people, according to reports from the first week of April 2020.
"Anyone who does research or activism around health inequities in Chicago would have anticipated this – just because of the way that opportunity is structured in the city of Chicago," said Jeni Hebert-Beirne, University of Illinois-Chicago community health professor and director of the Collaboratory for Health Justice. "Given our history of segregation and redlining, Chicago is a hyper-segregated city. This pattern we see of more favorable opportunity for health, whether it’s vaccinations or healthy food … aligns with race."
On Jan. 25, as the city of Chicago moved into its second phase of vaccinations, Mayor Lori Lightfoot sounded the alarm on disproportionate vaccination rates: “Unexpectedly low numbers of Black and brown Chicagoans have taken the vaccine so far, a percentage that is so alarmingly low that if we do not reverse this trend, we will continue to see more Black and brown fathers, mothers, grandparents, sons, daughters die of the virus when a vaccine is right here, right now, for free, for all."
In its first six weeks of vaccinations, Chicago gave shots to 108,000 health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities. Approximately 17% of people who received a first dose were Latino and 15% were Black, city officials announced last month.
“Our city is two-third people of color, and yet we are falling woefully behind in the number of people of color who have been vaccinated to date,” said Lightfoot, who received her first vaccine dose Jan. 25 at St. Bernard Hospital in Englewood. The predominantly Black community is in a ZIP code that has experienced one of the city's highest COVID-19 death rates – 248 per 100,000 residents – yet has one of the lowest vaccination rates: 3.5%.

© Grace Hauck Roseland, on Chicago's far south side, includes part of the 60628 ZIP code, where approximately 4% of residents have received a first vaccine dose, according to city data. “You are the most reluctant," Lightfoot said. "We want to do everything possible to break through the noise to address your fears and anything else that may be holding you back from taking this lifesaving vaccine.”
Another Black-majority neighborhood where city officials hope to improve vaccine access sits 5 miles south of Englewood. In Roseland, grocery stores are scarce, and about a quarter of residents live in poverty and rely on public transportation to get to work – twice the rates for Chicago as a whole. Like Englewood, the area has seen high COVID-19 death rates and low vaccination rates.
In Roseland, nearly 14% of residents are essential workers included in phases 1B and 1C in the vaccination plan; phase 1B launched Jan. 25 and includes first responders, teachers, grocery store workers, child care and transit professionals and more. According to city data, nearly 18% of Roseland residents are 65 or older, and almost 70% of adults under 65 have at least one comorbid condition increasing their risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes. Although about 80% of Chicago adults report having a primary care doctor, nearly a third of adult residents in Roseland do not.
To ensure Roseland residents had access to vaccine, city officials made sure several hospitals and health centers in the area received doses.
Last week, residents from neighborhoods across Chicago trickled in and out of Roseland Community Hospital, many bundled in coats in the 12-degree weather, standing on sidewalks lined with piles of snow.
Many receiving vaccinations hailed from downtown ZIP codes that are majority-white. Roseland residents said they were unsure about the vaccines.

© Grace Hauck Varnard Maggiefield, 52, says he and his seven brothers and two sisters are skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccines. "They all have the same thought I have. They don’t trust it," Maggiefield says. “I need more research in order to get the vaccine. As of right now, I wouldn’t take it,” said Varnard Maggiefield, 52, a service technician. “A lot of people, they’re not going to take it.”
Jerry Stokes, 38, said he wasn’t sure when or how he would get the vaccine.
“I don’t know. Do the vaccines work or not?” he asked as he walked past the hospital, headed home from the store. “I hope it don’t make it worse.”
Stokes said a few of his friends have had COVID-19, but they don’t leave their homes much anymore. He’s becoming “paranoid” about catching the virus. Stokes said he discussed the vaccines with his mother and siblings. “They’re scared,” he said.

© Grace Hauck Jerry Stokes, 38, a Roseland resident of 20 years, wonders, "Do the vaccines work or not?" Neighborhoods in contrast

In recent weeks, city officials have dedicated additional vaccine resources to 15 neighborhoods disproportionately affected by COVID-19 that are uniquely vulnerable to barriers to vaccinations. Seven are majority Hispanic, and eight are majority Black. Nine are on the city’s northwest and southwest sides and six on the south side.
City officials said the north side neighborhoods of North Center and Lake View are the least vulnerable to COVID-19 and have the fewest barriers to vaccine access. The neighborhoods include ZIP codes 60613 and 60657 – largely younger and white areas where the median household income is about 50% higher than the citywide average and as much as four times higher than that found in poorer parts of the city.
Those two north side ZIP codes have COVID-19 death rates three times lower and vaccination rates three times higher than in the ZIP codes that contain majority-Black Roseland and majority-Hispanic Belmont Cragin.

© Grace Hauck Former pharmacist Marissa Hampton, 35, walks her dog, Renly, in Chicago's North Center neighborhood Feb. 5. Hampton says she has administered dozens of shots for other viruses and plans to get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible. Marissa Hampton, 35, walked her dog, Renly, Friday night in North Center. They passed rows of town homes, some with bushes and porches still strung with colored lights from the holidays. A former technician and pharmacist for CVS, Hampton administered dozens of shots for other viruses. She plans to get a coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible.
“I’ve always wanted people to get their vaccines, for flu shots, shingles, pneumonia – anything that anyone’s qualified for, obviously, if they don’t have any allergic reactions to it,” said Hampton, who works on the business side of a pharmacy.
Her mother, who works at a hospital in her hometown of Springfield, Illinois, received both doses of vaccine and had mild side effects, Hampton said. Her grandparents have also been vaccinated.
“Obviously, the virus mutates, but that happens with the flu virus every year anyways,” she said. “It’s just more important to get everybody vaccinated to get that herd immunity.”
North Center stands in stark contrast to Belmont Cragin, a community Zayas' Grace and Peace Church serves.
One in five residents there is an essential worker, according to city data, many of whom work in manufacturing, educational services and social assistance. The median household income in its primary ZIP code is about $46,000, half of that found in North Center.
Census data shows the average household size is 72% higher than the average in white-majority ZIP codes, increasing the odds someone will contract COVID-19. A third of adults lack a primary care doctor, and the neighborhood, where income caps at $46,000 and about 20% of people live in poverty, has a dearth of pharmacies.
James Rudyk, executive director of the community's Northwest Side Housing Center, said those are real barriers to vaccine access. Most residents in the Belmont Cragin struggle to navigate online registration systems, he said, and can’t take time off work to get vaccinated or may not have the means of transportation to get to a vaccination site.
In white-majority ZIP codes, about 3% of homes do not have internet access compared with 7% in other Chicago neighborhoods, including some where the figure is as high as 14%.
"We haven’t made things simple for folks,” said Rudyk, who works to improve vaccine distribution through direct community outreach and grassroots efforts. His organization is working with the city to set up a mass vaccination site at a school. People who want to receive a shot will need to show proof of residence.
“Everyone I’ve interacted with, at the city, public and private clinics, is working extremely hard and doing their best to try to figure this out. I do believe the city is trying to get vaccine to Black and brown folks on the south and west sides,” he said last week, coming off back-to-back calls on vaccine distribution. “With that said, I have come to realize that the structure is not set up to support equity.”

© Grace Hauck Chicago's North Center area is home to a couple of the city’s top public schools, including Lane Tech College Prep. The 60618 ZIP code, where the school is located, has large white and Latino populations, and nearly 8% of the residents have received a first vaccine dose, according to city data. Belmont Cragin resident and retired nurse Darlene Ruiz, 65, said it’s been difficult to figure out how, when and where to register for a vaccination. Ruiz said she tried to register online for a vaccine with the city of Chicago and was “kicked out” of the website three times.
“They’re making it complex as far as registering, using identification codes or passwords, and then when you go to register, they’re no longer valid or they had expired,” Ruiz said. “I was almost discouraged.”
Ruiz said she received her first dose Thursday at a pop-up clinic in her independent living facility, Senior Suites, which houses people 62 and older. If the shot hadn’t come to her, she's not sure when she would have gotten it, Ruiz said.
Many of the people in her building chose not to get vaccinated, she said. Her daughter, who lives down the street, is skeptical about getting the vaccines.
“Some people didn’t do it. I think that they’re worried. They’re just scared," she said.
Rudyk said residents are more inclined to get vaccinated if someone they trust does first.
“Folks want it to be real, they want to see someone from their community,” Rudyk said. “Like, I don’t know Joe Biden, do you? People want it to be real to them." His group asked people in the neighborhood to share their vaccination stories on social media.

© Grace Hauck, USA TODAY Grace and Peace Church on Chicago's northwest side turned into a food bank. At Grace and Peace, Zayas works with Lurie Children’s Hospital and the city to turn the church into a vaccination site. When she and her husband received their vaccinations, they posted videos celebrating the event online.
Zayas, who is Puerto Rican and Black, wants to dispel skepticism within her communities and reassure people of the vaccines' safety while directing them how and where to get the shots.
"It's really important for us to stand in the gap for our people," she said.
Reach Nada Hassanein at nhassanein@usatoday.com and Grace Hauck at ghauck@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Just not equal at all': Vaccine rollout in Chicago a microcosm of racial disparities nationwide

Comment - Guess what - after all teh LSM whining - Who is responsible for teh distribution of the vaccine in Chicago - could it be the DPST mayor and her city health Department???
Oh my, Oh My!
Could it be that the DPST Rulers of Chicago are showing their usual incompetence, - and/or their usual ruling techniques - to keep minorities 'enslaved' in their shit hole communities - by their DPST/ccp 'Masters'???
These People - minorities of Chicago - - To be ignored and discriminated against by their 'Rulers' - except every four years their 'Rulers' come through with bread and circuses for the oppressed .

To keep their 'belongings" and ownership of teh Votes they depend on to continue their oppression of those of minority populations. To keep education on the efficacy of vaccines secret from teh populations who perhaps need them most???

All teh while the 'Rulers' hypocritically complain that 'Trump ' is at Fault!!
Typical DPST/ccp LSM goebbels propaganda.