Suburbanites grabbing up vaccine slots in city
They take South, West side appointments. But should they?
Within the first couple days of vaccinating seniors and essential workers on the South Side of Chicago late last month, doctors at Howard Brown Health noticed something unusual: patients traveling from the North Side of the city to the clinics.
“They weren’t the people that lived in the community,” said Dr. Maya Green, Howard Brown’s regional medical director for the South and West sides. “The fact is, the link (for appointments) was being communicated and shared faster on the North Side of Chicago, and not among Black and brown communities on the South and West sides of Chicago.”
It’s a scenario that’s been playing out across the city in recent weeks since Illinois opened vaccinations to seniors and front-line essential workers Jan. 25. Many vaccine doses were sent to underserved parts of Chicago in an effort to make sure people in the communities hardest-hit by COVID-19 had access to shots. But with overall vaccines in short supply, people
from outside those areas have been traveling to them to get vaccinated.
The issue has presented a moral dilemma for some suburbanites and others who want the vaccines. And it’s become a call to action for those trying to ensure vaccines make it into the neighborhoods that have suffered the most from COVID-19.
There are frustrations on both sides. The people driving from the north suburbs to take appointments in the city are often front-line, essential workers or seniors with serious medical conditions who can’t find shots closer to home. If a slot is open at a South Side clinic or pharmacy, and no one in that community has signed up for it, they say there’s no reason they shouldn’t take it.
South and West side community and health leaders, however, say the reason there are sometimes available vaccination appointments in their communities is because not enough effort has gone into addressing the concerns residents have about the vaccine and helping them navigate the appointment system.
“At the end of the day, it demonstrates, really, a failure on the part of our public leaders and our civic leaders to really educate everyone and make sure there’s an understanding of what the opportunities are,” said Patrick Brosnan, executive director of the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council.
So far, in Chicago, about 18% of first doses have gone to Latino people, 19% to Black people, 41% to white people and nearly 7% to Asians, according to the city.
‘This system is broken’
Some hospital systems and community health clinics are giving vaccines to only their established patients.But retail pharmacies, such as Walgreens and Walmart, have been allowing seniors and front-line, essential workers to make appointments online, across their participating stores.
That’s how Carly Humes, a teacher who lives in Highland Park, got an appointment at a Walmart on the South Side, near 83rd Street in West Chatham. Humes’ co-worker sent her the link to schedule an appointment.
Humes, 42, and her husband scoured the Internet for appointments, often searching in the middle of the night, before finding the one on the South Side.
She received her first shot Jan. 28. It was essential she get the vaccine because she has to teach in-person each day, and she lives with her parents who are both in their 70s and have serious health conditions, she said.
“If my mom got COVID, she would die,” Humes said. “There’s no doubt about it. She has no immune system.”
Still, she realizes it’s a complex issue.
“I think that everything about this system is broken,” Humes said. People in vulnerable communities “should be able to get the shot in their community, but the reality of the situation is there are people in the community who don’t want it, and people in the community who don’t have access to the computer and everything they need to be able to get it. If that means this vaccine is going to waste, and not going to be used or thrown away, that’s not right either.”
Suburban residents would rather get the vaccination closer to home, but they often can’t find it there, she said. Vaccine providers in the North suburbs, in some cases, began giving shots to seniors and frontline essential workers later than those in other parts of the state.
The Lake County health department just began vaccinating people ages 65 and older at its fairgrounds site Wednesday — more than three weeks after the state opened up vaccinations to seniors. Until this past week, only two Walgreens in Lake County were vaccinating seniors and frontline essential workers, said Mark Pfister, executive director of the Lake County Health Department and Community Health Center.
NorthShore University HealthSystem started vaccinating seniors Feb. 4. When Northwestern Medicine started vaccinating seniors and front-line essential workers in January, it focused first on its oldest patients and those in vulnerable areas, rather than invite all its senior patients for shots.
A lack of enough doses was partly to blame for not getting vaccines to more people more quickly, said Pfister and the hospital systems.
“People who very much want to be vaccinated, and be vaccinated only for the right motivations, are going to do what they need to do … and if that means traveling a bit further from their homes in order to get vaccinated, there are many people who will do that,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kopin, chief medical officer for Northwestern Medicine’s north region.
Dr. Jay Bhatt, of Harveybased Family Christian Health Center said he’d prefer to see people traveling between communities to be vaccinated rather than doses going unused. The health center is administering vaccinations, and despite some hesitancy to get the vaccine among Black people, Bhatt says they too want to get vaccinated.
It shouldn’t be a matter of choosing to vaccinate one community over another, he said.
“I think we can prioritize at-risk communities and people of color and vaccinate them and try to just get as many vaccinations done as possible,” he said. “If there’s a mass vaccination clinic, and you fill those spots with people that want to get vaccinated, great. That means there’s potential for less virus in the community.”
Some South and West side health and community leaders, however, are troubled by stories of suburbanites heading into their neighborhoods for vaccines.
“The reality is we are dying at more alarming rates than folks in the suburbs,” said Asiaha Butler, CEO and co-founder of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood. “They’re just executing their privilege, as they do in a lot of situations.”
Doses in vulnerable neighborhoods shouldn’t go unused, but they should be offered to people in those areas first, said Dr. Kelly Michelson, director of the Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Generally, it’s not “appropriate” for people from lower-risk communities to go to higher-risk ones, which have struggled more with COVID-19, for vaccines, she said.
“That’s not the purpose of having them in the highrisk areas,” she said.
‘Reach out a little more’
Some believe part of the reason it’s sometimes easier to find vaccination appointments on the South Side is because of vaccine hesitancy among brown and Black communities. There’s a long, well-documented history of the medical system experimenting on and mistreating people of color. Cases like the Tuskegee syphilis study, in which Black men with the disease went untreated for years, have led to a deep, persistent mistrust of the medical establishment among some African Americans.
About 24% of Black people and 34% of Latinos polled in December said they planned to get COVID-19 vaccines, compared with 53% of white respondents, according to a report from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago.
“Black people don’t deny that the virus is dangerous,” said the Rev. Brian E. Smith, director of advancement and strategic partnerships at the Chicago Theological Seminary in Woodlawn. “Most of us have had family members or individuals that are close to us that have been impacted by this particular virus. That’s not the issue, but there is a concern that they could be harmed. And they don’t want to be guinea pigs.”
Residents in Black and brown communities may need more of a personal connection — a recommendation from a community leader or their own doctor — before feeling comfortable getting the vaccine. When that happens, they want the shot just as much as anyone in the suburbs, health leaders say.
It’s not enough to hand people in Black and brown communities an internet link for vaccine appointments, said Green, with Howard Brown Health.
“Our communities are very educated,” Green said.
“They’ve been educated by history. There’s not a point where I, as a provider, can come and educate or make them ready for a vaccine. What I can do is listen to their perspective and give them information when they ask for it.”
Both Erie Family Health Centers and Esperanza Health Centers have been reaching out to many patients to schedule shots. As a result, they say they’re filling all of their appointment slots.
“We’ve been fortunate and lucky to establish that relationship with our patients that they feel comfortable receiving information from us,” said Miguel Blancarte, Jr., director of COVID-19 response and community outreach at Esperanza. “They trust us.”
Waverly Walker, a senior who lives in North Lawndale, hadn’t started looking for a shot yet when his doctor from Erie called him in late January and scheduled an appointment.
“I think especially in the Black areas and the Hispanic areas, that they need to reach out a little more to people that are unsure about the effects of the shot,” Walker said. “They don’t know if it’s going to help them or not.”
Technology may also be a barrier to getting vaccines. People may not have computers they can sit in front of all day hunting for spots, Brosnan said. They may not have reliable Internet access.
And while there are some hotlines to call for appointments, people with busy schedules — often as essential, front-line employees — may be unable to use them successfully, Green said.
Tondrea Bowman, a 50year-old mail carrier from Chatham, considered giving up on getting a vaccine because it was so difficult to make an appointment online. She refreshed vaccination sign-up pages twice a day for weeks, until Trinity United Church of Christ reached out to her about its vaccination event with Howard Brown Health. She was overjoyed to finally grab a spot.
“It was a tedious process,” Bowman said about checking websites while monitoring her 13-year-old son’s e-learning. “It’s a downer because I’ve already had reservations even trying to decide whether or not I wanted to take it, and then to have to search and continuously there’s no appointments, there’s no appointments, it kind of leads you to, well, maybe I shouldn’t take it.”
‘Correct the way we were communicating’
Chicago Department of Public Health commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady acknowledged during an online question-and-answer session Tuesday that people are traveling for vaccines and said the department is working on ways to address that.
Under the city’s Protect Chicago Plus vaccine equity program, the public health department is rolling out vaccination sites that either will be permanent or popups in 15 neighborhoods that have been most susceptible to COVID-19, medical director Dr. Candice Robinson said. Information on how to sign up will be distributed through community groups rather than a published link on the city’s website. Community groups will take a lead role in signing up local residents through their networks.
The department does not have data on how prevalent the issue of traveling for vaccines is, but is “thinking about ways to respond” that do not involve requiring IDs because that could turn away people living in the country without authorization, said Andrew Buchanan, spokesman for the city’s health department. The percentages of Black and Latino Chicagoans receiving first doses has already improved significantly in recent weeks, according to city data.
At a state Senate committee hearing Feb. 11, Sen. Cristina H. Pacione-Zayas, D-Chicago, asked representatives of retail pharmacy chains what they were doing about people from other areas driving into Black and brown Chicago communities for vaccines.
Joel Baise, Walgreens senior director of state and local government relations, said the chain is holding back a small number of appointments at its stores in underserved communities and not allowing people to sign up for those appointments online. Instead, it’s reaching out to area seniors and giving those appointments to them.
Some local health providers, such as Oak Street Health and Howard Brown Health, made adjustments shortly after realizing that their vaccine clinics were attracting people from outside their neighborhoods.
Oak Street began calling people and knocking on the doors of patients who lived near their clinics to help them make appointments. It also stopped allowing people to make appointments online, though they can go to the website to sign up for a waiting list, said Geoff Price, chief operating officer.
After Howard Brown saw patients from outside its neighborhoods, it sought out community leaders and asked them to help sign up seniors for vaccines, Green said. It also began calling patients to set up appointments for them. Howard Brown held a mass vaccination on Feb. 13 that covered five sites, four of which were on the South and West sides.
“We needed to correct the way we were communicating,” Green said.
Green said the fastspreading nature of COVID-19 means that affluent and vulnerable communities must both be vaccinated. Inclusion, and explicitly reaching out to vulnerable communities, helps everyone.
“One community can’t heal without the other,” Green said. “We have to do this in a united fashion.”