Days before dose, vendor contracts virus
Man lands in ICU in critical condition; wife running stand
All through 2020, Felipe Vallarta was hesitant to start selling his corn, tamales and churros at a busy intersection in the Rogers Park neighborhood.
Though he needed the money, Vallarta feared that he and his wife, who helps sell the Mexican snacks, would contract the coronavirus.
The couple decided to finally set up shop again in their usual spot in early March, “when things started to get better,” said Zenaida Castillo, Vallarta’s wife.
But just days before Felipon, as many of his loyal customers know him, was scheduled to get his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, he contracted the coronavirus. He’s now in critical condition in the intensive care unit at a Glenview hospital.
“Siento pura tristeza,” I feel pure sadness, said Castillo as she peeled a mango to prepare a fruit cocktail for a customer.
Despite feeling “extremely sad” since her husband fell ill, she set up their stand again because she needs the money to pay rent, she said.
Even as vaccines become more easily available and Chicago moves toward opening up further, COVID19 cases continue to hit low-income Latino and Black communities, said Dr. Allison Arwady, the city’s health commissioner.
The two communities continue to be the hardest hit by COVID-19 and also have the lowest vaccination rates in the city, despite efforts to boost inoculation numbers.
Castillo, 74, said she and her husband, who is 60, struggled to find appointments to get inoculated sooner.
Castillo got her first dose in mid-March and Vallarta was set to get his April 17, but he fell ill the first week of April and was placed in a medically induced coma April 25 at Glenbrook Hospital, said his daughter Elizabeth Jimenez.
“As much as I tried, I couldn’t get them both appointments to get the vaccine at the same time,” Jimenez said.
Unlike people living in other neighborhoods in the city with large Latino populations, as residents of Rogers Park, the couple didn’t have access to mass vaccination sites.
Because vaccine doses were limited until recently, “we had to first tackle the outbreak by getting vaccines to the areas that had the highest positivity rate and the superspreaders of disease immediately to get it under control across the city,” said Dr. Geraldine Luna, director for the COVID-19 Initiative at the city health department.
Castillo now struggles with the thought that her husband couldn’t get the vaccine at the same time that she did.
The idea of losing him, she said, “is the worst thing that could happen to me, I feel like the world is closing in on me.
“I’m praying, with all my heart that the Lord heals him.”
Throughout the pandemic, Latino and the Black residents of Chicago have been disproportionately affected, Arwady said.
While the Latino community has consistently had the highest positivity rate across the city, more recently the highest number of cases and death have been in the Black community.
From April 1 through May 6, more than 6,000 African Americans and roughly 4,500 Latinos in Chicago had have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, according to city data.
A Tribune analysis of Chicago data shows the third surge, while initially infecting more predominantly white neighborhoods at a higher rate, soon took a deeper hold among Latino and Black residents. By mid-April, the average rate of new daily cases, when adjusted for population sizes, was nearly double for Latino residents than white residents, and nearly triple for Black residents than white residents.
Between April 1 and May 6, 77 Black people and 55 Latinos died of COVID-19 complications, according to city data.
All while only 36% of the Latino population and 30% of Black residents in Chicago have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine compared with 53% of whites and 51% of Asians.
The high positivity rate among low-income Black and Latino communities continues to be fueled by the socioeconomic disparities that affect those communities, even as vaccines become more easily available, Luna said.
And the low vaccination rates are among the reasons why the two groups continue to be the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Luna said.
At first, Black and Latino Chicagoans weren’t getting vaccinated because of “limited resources and vaccines available,” despite the city’s efforts to target the hardest-hit ZIP codes, Arwady said.
More recently, doubts about getting the vaccine have become the greater challenge.
“Many may make the decision to get it when it’s too late,” Luna said.
The Latino community has fallen prey to conspiracy theories and misinformation through social media and media outlets that discourage people from getting the vaccine and spread erroneous information, Luna said.
Vallarta may have been the victim of misinformation. Even after his health was noticeably deteriorating, he refused to go to the hospital, said Jimenez.
“He didn’t want to go because he would talk to his friends who would tell him that once you go to the hospital, you never get out,” Jimenez said.
Her father also didn’t get information from his primary doctor about what to do and when to contact a doctor after testing positive for the coronavirus.
For two weeks, Jimenez and her daughter, Jany Andrade, 21, relied on home remedies as they cared for Vallarta, “but nothing worked,” said Andrade.
“He is my everything,” said Andrade, as she helped her grandmother make an elote for a customer one recent afternoon.
Many people stop by the family’s stand just to ask about Vallarta’s health or to donate money, the family says.
Gilberto Almanza, a loyal customer since the couple began selling elotes at Rogers Avenue and Clark Street in 2015, said that when he found out that Vallarta had contracted the coronavirus “reality hit again as things seem to go back to normal.”
“I felt heartbroken when I heard the news, it’s unfortunate that COVID-19 beat him to the vaccine; it’s the most vulnerable that keep getting infected,” Almanza said.
Vallarta and Castillo, who have lived in Rogers Park for more than 20 years, became street vendors when Castillo lost her job as a babysitter, Castillo said. Ever since the couple have started selling each day after Vallarta finished his part-time job at a nearby restaurant around 3 p.m. and sold until 8 p.m.
Over the years, Castillo said, her husband has made a lot of friends “because he is a very friendly man; a hardworking man.”
They were neighborhood favorites even before the Sun-Times featured the couple in a video in 2018 in which Vallarta talks about the love he has for his job.
Castillo said she will continue praying for her husband and for all those suffering during the pandemic.
She is “deeply thankful,” to all the people who have stopped by to check on her and ask about her husband. Their concern gives her hope and strength “after weeks of desperation and tears.”
The affection the community has for Vallarta and his wife has been reflected in the response to a GoFundMe page that Andrade set up to cover the medical expenses for her grandfather because he doesn’t have health insurance and does not have savings, Andrade said.
Her grandparents, she said, “are undocumented and have had a tough life here but still come out and work every day.”
Nearly 300 people had donated money by Friday, bringing in about $14,000.
Trying to hold back tears, Andrade said that the last time she spoke to her grandfather he promised her that he wouldn’t give up.
“I’m holding on to that,” she said.