SUMMER COVID CAUTION
Chicagoans are urged to protect themselves against omicron variant
Though a slew of summer concerts, festivals and other outdoor activities are on the horizon, Chicagoans are being urged to consider health precautions before heading out the door to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Over the past few months new information regarding omicron, the dominant variant, has been eye-opening, particularly for communities of color.
In March the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the hospitalization rate of U.S. adults increased during the omicron-predominant period, regardless of vaccination status, with Black adults having the sharpest increase in hospitalizations as compared with other racial and ethnic groups.
Black adults were hospitalized at nearly four times the rate of non-Hispanic white adults, according to the CDC.
In April the Chicago Department of Public Health shared that the life expectancy in Chicago declined during the first year of the pandemic, with the biggest drops seen in the Black and Hispanic communities. For the first time in decades life expectancy for Black Chicagoans fell below 70.
And in May the CDC moved Chicago to a “high” COVID level, based on the number of hospital beds being used, hospital admissions and total number of new COVID-19 cases in the area.
The CDC suggests that the lower vaccination rate in Black adults has led to an increased risk of hospitalization during this omicron outbreak.
As of Jan. 26, 39.6% of Black adults received their first two vaccine shots, compared with 54.5% of white adults. Once the booster was available 43.9% of Black adults rolled up their sleeves for the jab, compared with 47.3% of white adults.
Mercedes Carnethon, vice chair of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, explained why Black adults are more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19:
“From the onset of the pandemic, adults who had a higher burden of health problems, including obesity, heart disease and diabetes, were more likely to experience severe COVID-19,” Carnethon said.
In Illinois, the percentage of non-Hispanic Black adults who had diabetes in 2021 was 16.6%, 8.6% for cardiovascular disease and 39.8% for obesity, according to a report by America’s Health Rankings.
“Black adults have higher rates of these chronic conditions than non-Hispanic whites, so even when we’re looking at early data coming from Asia and Europe on who was most affected, we projected that COVID-19 would hit Black and other socially and economically vulnerable communities the hardest,” Carnethon said. “Following vaccination, these disparities in hospitalization persisted because a smaller proportion of Black adults chose to vaccinate than other race and ethnic groups.”
Carnethon said more timely and accurate vaccine data could help with mitigation efforts.
“The reason they are harder to find and verify as accurate is that not all vaccination sites are collecting race or ethnicity data when vaccinating,” Carnethon said. “Having this information on hand would help justify a need for targeted interventions to promote vaccination and boosters.”
The CDC says raising awareness of the benefits of vaccinations and removing barriers to their access for those with disproportionately higher COVID hospitalization rates is an “urgent health priority.”
The American Public Health Association released a report in February that suggested vaccination efforts should be carried out in conjunction with other mitigation measures.
Although American Indians and Native Alaskans have among the highest vaccination rates in the United States, an estimated 1 in 475 American Indians and Native Alaskans have died from COVID-19, as compared with 1 in 825 white Americans, according to the APHA.
The CDC also reported that Native Americans are three times more likely to face COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and death than white adults.
Alison Barlow, who is the director of Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health, says conditions such as overcrowded housing, lack of water and healthy food, a lag in receiving masks and lack of access to health care have contributed to the spread of COVID-19 in American Indian and Native Alaskan communities.
“Distances do matter,” Allison Barlow said. “Due to long distances, American Indian and Native Alaskan people may try to tough it out longer with worsening (COVID-19) symptoms instead of making the long journey to hospitals, where they may be experiencing long waits and less hospital care.”
Despite the setbacks Native Americans and Native Alaskans have among the highest vaccination rates in the U.S. with 54.7% of the entire population being vaccinated, while some tribes are at 98%, according to the APHA.
Traditional healers, tribe elders and native language speakers got involved with efforts that included organized outreach events, door-to-door vaccine distribution, and both formal and informal educational events to promote vaccines.
The high vaccination turnout has resulted in Native Americans experiencing the steepest decline in COVID-19 mortality rates of any racial group, the APHA report stated. Their rates dropped to nearly the same levels as those of white and Asian populations and at an earlier rate than for other racial groups.
“The innovations and collective that American Indian and Native Alaskan peoples exhibited to respond to COVID-19 under the worst conditions has been a model of value systems that support a one-for-all approach,” Barlow said.
“Let their approach be a lesson for the rest of Americans, who often during this pandemic favored individual needs and desires over what was best for their communities.”