But a new program at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center is helping to protect Blumenberg and others living in neighborhoods with the highest mortality and positivity rates for Covid-19. His doctors are distributing vaccines to Rush patients aged 65 and over who cannot go to a clinic.
Thanks to the program, Hattie and her daughter, Jackie Blumenberg, received the Covid-19 vaccine at their home.
The Rush @ Home program offers home care to eligible patients and has so far vaccinated at least 71 people. The program has 120 people enrolled and a hospital spokesman says the waiting list is growing.
“It is a blessing and it is great,” Hattie Blumenberg told CNN moments after receiving the vaccine. “I hope that everyone who catches him will do well. I think people should catch him.”
The Blumenbergs have already had a coronavirus scare. Another of Hattie Blumenberg’s daughters, Nora Blumenberg, spent two weeks in the hospital and needed oxygen after she was diagnosed with Covid-19 in November.
“A little bit of everything was going through my mind, but I had to put my trust in the Lord,” said Hattie Blumenberg from her living room in Chicago, while talking about her daughter. “She is still struggling.”
Nora Blumenberg, 68, lives in a skyscraper for the elderly. Her family said she was barely able to walk to the dump, just a few feet from her apartment door, without panting.
Jackie Blumenberg said that his sister became ill and the persistent effects of the virus erased any hesitation she had about getting the vaccine.
“They had to stop her from talking on the phone to reserve her energy. When she was talking, she was barely able to breathe,” said Jackie Blumenberg. “My sister is still not sure. Instead of my life drastically not being the same, I will try. This is no flu. Life or death – which one do you choose? It’s not difficult for me to find out.”
Why the most vulnerable are not being vaccinated
But not everyone who wants the vaccine can get it. And access generally falls on racial lines.
The challenge in Chicago – and in cities across the country – is that many of the most vulnerable residents are not being vaccinated.
Dr. Elizabeth Davis, of Rush University Medical Center, said the reason can be attributed to systemic racism at the launch of the vaccine.
“Despite the best intentions (the vaccine) was disproportionately aimed at whites. And I think it is partly because of the system … there is structural racism underlying all structures in our city. We know that there is structural racism in the health sector too, “Davis told CNN. “And so, I think we are seeing this happen even in things like, for example, pharmacies.”
Many West Chicago residents, like Hattie Blumenberg, do not have pharmacies nearby, making it more difficult to get a vaccine.
The disparities are clear in the Kaiser Family Foundation figures. In mid-February, Latinos accounted for 26% of coronavirus cases in Illinois, but only 9% of vaccinations. In Maryland, blacks make up 33% of cases, but only 16% of vaccinations.
Uber and Walgreens partner to offer rides to vaccination sites
Davis says it is time to go beyond the superficial explanations we have heard over and over.
“Oh, well, black people have more diabetes, you know, but that’s not an explanation for why more (black) people are catching Covid … in the survey, it’s also not a good explanation for why there are more deaths,” she said.
“Why are frontline healthcare professionals disproportionately black, like all of the essential professionals we’re talking about? I think if you continue to dig deeper and say, ‘Well, why is that?’ what you see is racism. ”
It is a problem that President Joe Biden says he is trying to solve.
“The fact is, if you’re 70, you don’t have a vehicle and you live in a difficult neighborhood, which means it’s a large concentration of Covid, you’re unlikely to be able to walk five miles to get a vaccine,” he said. during a meeting at CNN’s city hall in February.
Biden’s Covid-19 aid package includes funding for mobile vaccines, which began in states like Texas, California and Massachusetts.
As vaccines become available for mass distribution, Walgreens and Uber say they will “launch several initiatives in the coming months”, including free transportation to Walgreens stores and outside vaccine clinics; access to pre-booked trips on Uber when vaccination is scheduled; and a new educational program with the National Urban League to deal with vaccine hesitation.
Patient’s daughter: ‘This is a blessing’
In Chicago, about five miles from Blumenberg’s home, a Rush vaccination team also showed up at Maltilde Flores’s home. She also lives in a deserted pharmacy, far from places that offer vaccines.
The 92-year-old’s daughter, Carmen Flores-Rance, said that taking her mother out of the house would require moving mountains.
“It is a blessing to have someone come home, especially when you have someone who is Latin, a beautiful 92-year-old mother who has dementia and cannot do anything for herself,” she said.
“Not many elderly people have this type of service. I am very blessed to have you here.”
On the day CNN met the Blumenberg family, another patient was unable to receive the scheduled vaccine due to a scheduling conflict. Immediately, the vaccination team had to find someone else who was eligible to receive the extra dose.
“We never want to waste vaccines,” said Davis. “It is such an important thing for people to receive, so when we are in the field, we have to be very careful to bring the exact number of vaccines we need.”
Meanwhile, the Blumenbergs say the Rush vaccination program may have saved them – not just from Covid, but from an uneven system that ignores patients like them.
“Nobody is above anyone,” said Jackie Blumenberg. “We all bleed the same way.”