Latino community leaders met virtually on Wednesday to present their COVID-19 vaccine distribution model to Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Department of Public Health in hopes that it will serve efforts to reach community residents who feel that they have been left out of the city’s vaccination plans, especially as the city’s Black and Latino communities are experiencing the highest death and positivity rates.
The Puerto Rican Agenda, a non-profit organization striving for the self-determination of Puerto Ricans in Chicago, held a virtual meeting to address issues pertaining to COVID-19 access and education in Black and Latino communities across the city, particularly in the Greater Humboldt Park area.
More than 70 percent of COVID-related deaths in Chicago are Black and Latino, despite making up less than 50 percent of the population, according to data from the Chicago Data Portal.
Several local politicians — including Sen. Omar Aquino (D-Ill.) and Rep. Delia Ramírez (D-Ill.) — and community stakeholders showed up in support of the model, which was developed with the guidance of medical professionals, like José R. Sánchez, president and CEO of Humboldt Park Health (formerly Norwegian American Hospital). It is comprised of four goals that aim to increase education, awareness and information for the communities who’ve been hit hardest by the pandemic and in some cases have expressed vaccine hesitancy:
- Open Humboldt Park Health as a vaccination hub to the Greater Humboldt Park communities.
- Expand vaccination and education programs to accommodate the multigenerational homes in which the majority of Latino families reside.
- Activate educational campaigns using Promotoras de Salud, bilingual community health advocates sent door-to-door in the most vulnerable zip codes with the highest rates of incidents and infection.
- Expand on President Biden’s call to establish a U.S. Public Health Jobs Corps to mobilize at least 100,000 people across the country with support from local organizations in communities most at risk to perform culturally competent approaches to contact tracing and vaccination.
The agenda’s co-chair, Jessie Fuentes, said the organization recognizes that Lightfoot’s office is doing all that they can to mitigate the spread, even with the limited resources available as vaccine production and rollouts are happening much slower than anticipated.
“What we are demanding is that they listen to the community. We are demanding for the resources so that we can vaccinate the highest-risk residents in our community,” Fuentes said.
She reiterated the Agenda’s goal for the recently renamed Humboldt Park Health to become a vaccine hub, particularly for the 15 Black and Latino zip codes which the city has identified as being disproportionately impacted by COVID.
Sánchez shared Humboldt Park Health’s most recent data showing that the more than 22,000 people who have been tested in the community have a positivity rate of approximately 16 percent, and the majority of those testing positive are Black and Latino individuals. This rate is high in comparison with the state’s current positivity rate of approximately 5.5 percent, which warranted a reopening in many counties including Cook.
In April, May and June, testing data showed that the positivity rate for COVID-19 in Humboldt Park was at 36 percent, more than four times the positivity rate of the rest of the state and city at the time, according to Sánchez.
“We cannot have a comprehensive approach to vaccinate everyone in the HP area if we do not have enough vaccines,” Sánchez said. “We have the infrastructure, we have the doctors, we have the nurses, but without the vaccine we cannot do anything.”
Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th) said he’s spoken to community members who are frustrated by the lack of information available about testing for people who are working and have kids to take care of — they don’t have the time to figure out what exists even if they do know how to navigate the websites.
“The information needs to be presented in a way that works for our communities,” he said. “What we are asking is within the context of the inventory available that it be more equitably distributed based upon positivity rates. Don’t make us expect to receive something that we are obviously not going to receive.”
Sen. Omar Aquino (D-Ill.) vocalized his support for the Agenda’s four-point model, citing that Latino communities are impacted by several social determinants of health.
“Those living in Latino communities are more likely to be essential workers and they live in multi-generational households, sometimes mixed status households where seeking out adequate healthcare presents a greater risk for undocumented family members,” Aquino said.
In fact, 69 percent of undocumented workers in the United States are also essential workers, meaning that they can’t work from home and they are at risk for bringing the virus home to vulnerable and/or elderly family members.
“They say we’re the big spreaders, well get us the vaccine!” said Emma Lozano, pastor of Centro Sin Fronteras in Pilsen, who attended the virtual meeting.
Lozano wants to debunk the myth that there is a sense of mistrust among Latinos surrounding the vaccine, saying that it’s the lack of availability that is causing the mistrust. Maldonado doubled down on debunking this claim, saying that there is no real way to measure mistrust.
“We’re ready, but the vaccinations aren’t here,” Lozano said.
The mayor and city health officials recently announced a campaign to reach Black and Latino residents in Archer Heights, Austin, Belmont Cragin, Chicago Lawn, Englewood, Gage Park, Humboldt Park, Montclare, New City, North Lawndale, Roseland, South Deering, South Lawndale, Washington Heights and West Englewood.
