Chicagoans will be able to pre-register for a coronavirus vaccine, get text messages “tailored to their symptoms” and guidance about “where and when to seek medical care” by downloading a new app developed by City Hall.
The city is calling the app “Chi COVID Coach.”
It was built with help from Google and MTX to help the Chicago Department of Public Health communicate with Chicagoans who have either tested positive for the virus or may be experiencing symptoms.
Those who register will get “daily check-ins” on their well-being, as well as advice about “what they and other people in their households should do to limit the spread of the coronavirus.”
Registrants also will get:
• Text messages tailored to their symptoms
• Information about where and when to seek medical care
• Alerts about where and when testing is available. Anti-body testing is still being developed, but but will be included once it is available.
Yet another feature of the new app is the ability to pre-register for a coronavirus vaccine whenever it becomes available.
“Though a vaccine may be many months away, CDPH is already taking steps to prepare for mass vaccination. Because of this feature, everyone is encouraged to sign up, whether symptomatic or not. Registration for the app is free and information will be protected and only used by CDPH for public health purposes related to COVID-19,” City Hall wrote in a statement.
The app eventually will be available for download at www.Chicago.gov/covidcoach. Chicagoans are advised to check the city’s coronavirus website — www.Chicago.gov/coronavirus — for the statistics on coronavirus cases and deaths and for information on the city’s response.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady are scheduled to talk more about the app at a 1 p.m. news conference at City Hall.
Last week, Lightfoot outlined the immediate steps she has taken to prevent the coronavirus from continuing to kill African-Americans at a rate four times higher than whites.
The mayor’s “hyper-local, data-informed”strategy will be focused, at least initially on three hard-hit neighborhoods: Austin, Auburn-Gresham and South Shore.
The unprecedented outreach by Lightfoot’s so-called “racial equity rapid response team” includes expanded testing and free distribution of 60,000 masks, 80,000 door hangers and 150,000 postcards.
The goal is to “pro-actively reach” African-Americans at greatest risk of contracting the coronavirus because of their age, their underlying health conditions or the fact that they are “essential” employees who cannot afford to stay safe at home.
To spread the message, the city held three, 90-minute telephone town hall meetings, one in each of the three impacted neighborhoods.
Targeted public service announcements on radio and television are also planned, once again, using comedy as an education vehicle.
When Lightfoot first sounded the alarm about the racial disparity, Africans-Americans who comprise 30 percent of Chicago’s population made up 72 percent of COVID-19 deaths.
Last week, it was down to a still-alarming 60 percent or 287 of Chicago’s 500 deaths.
The death rate among African-Americans in Chicago remained ur times higher than it is for whites, the commissioner said.
For a mayor who declared war on poverty before the pandemic, that is simply unacceptable.
“The health disparities that result in high rates of diabetes, heart and respiratory disease are the very conditions that this virus ruthlessly attacks,” the mayor said last week.
Lightfoot then said the maps of coronavirus cases concentrated in black neighborhood “illuminated the broken and racist system of inequality that has held these same communities in the grip of poverty for generations” in Chicago.
“That has withheld access to health care, jobs and education….The very issues that placed incredible burdens on our families before this crisis have only grown exponentially during this crisis. And thrust into high relief how the issues of equity and opportunity are truly matters of life and death,” she said.
“We simply will not stand for that here in Chicago. Not anymore.”
