Chicago health officials recently released initial COVID-19 vaccine data, offering a glimpse at how many residents have received the first dose of the immunization, according to their home ZIP codes.
While the data is very preliminary — and likely shaped by the location of long-term care facilities and where hospital workers tend to live ? the numbers so far indicate more residents on the North Side and areas along the lakefront have received the shot compared to those in most South and West side neighborhoods.
Here are six things to know about these vaccination statistics:
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var e in a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var t=document.getElementById(“datawrapper-chart-“+e)||document.querySelector(“iframe[src*='”+e+”‘]”);t&&(t.style.height=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][e]+”px”)}}))}();
1. The earliest numbers are overwhelmingly clustered in North Side neighborhoods and along the lakefront — areas that tend to be wealthier and generally have a larger white population than other parts of the city; the initial data shows a much lower concentration of folks who have received the vaccine in most West and South side ZIP codes, neighborhoods that tend to be more predominantly Black and Hispanic.
Some ZIP codes with the highest percentage of residents having received the first vaccine dose are in the Magnificent Mile, Loop, South Loop, Wicker Park and West Town areas. Some ZIP codes with the lowest percentage of residents having received the first vaccine dose include the Englewood and Hegewisch neighborhoods on the South Side and the West Garfield Park area on the West Side.
2. These numbers cover just a sliver of the overall population. Chicago vaccination sites have administered 94,365 doses of the vaccine as of Wednesday, which includes nonresidents who work in the city; roughly 2% of Chicago residents have received the first dose.
While the initial geographic divide is concerning, city health leaders stress that only health care workers and folks living in long-term care facilities have been eligible for the immunization. The map generally reflects a combination of where health care workers live and which health care workers “have been the first to raise their hands” to get the new vaccine, said Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady.
Some hospitals have reported vaccine hesitancy among employees, particularly support staff. Arwady said national data suggests those with higher levels of education tend to be the first to seek the vaccine. But she believes this might change with time, based on recent focus groups with health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities.
“We’re hearing from a lot of people that they are interested in getting the vaccine, but they wanted to see their colleagues, their co-workers get both of those doses and do well with it,” she said.
In terms of age, the majority of people who have received the first vaccine dose so far were under 60. That might also change in the coming weeks: City officials recently announced that if hospitals have any unused doses of vaccine, those can be reallocated to at-risk patients over 65; residents 65 or older also will be eligible for the immunization in the next vaccination stage.
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var e in a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var t=document.getElementById(“datawrapper-chart-“+e)||document.querySelector(“iframe[src*='”+e+”‘]”);t&&(t.style.height=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][e]+”px”)}}))}();
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var e in a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var t=document.getElementById(“datawrapper-chart-“+e)||document.querySelector(“iframe[src*='”+e+”‘]”);t&&(t.style.height=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][e]+”px”)}}))}();
3. Race could be a major factor. While the city is still awaiting more data on race and ethnicity, Arwady said surveys prior to the vaccine’s availability indicated that white residents were twice as likely to say they intended to get immunized against COVID-19 than Black residents.
These concerns stem from valid, historic reasons as well as long-term institutional racism, Arwady said.
“But that is going to be an uphill battle,” she said. “We’re concentrating hard on the areas in the city where we’re seeing lower uptake. And there’s significant equity planning going into this.”
This disparity might shift as more health care workers outside of hospitals have access to the vaccine, Arwady said. For example, city data shows home-based health care workers were much more likely to live on the West and South sides, so the city has been trying to prioritize these outpatient workers, including organizing free rides to vaccination sites.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot also recently announced that the city plans to have six mass vaccination sites — mainly on the West and South sides — open by next week.
“Examining public health data by where people live in Chicago can be really informative as we know opportunity and resources for health are not evenly distributed across the city,” said Jeni Hebert-Beirne, associate professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Yet she cautioned that it’s likely too early to draw conclusions from the numbers.
“Given our city’s investment in community-based COVID-19 response I would expect the picture to change, but we must be intentional about our commitment to health equity,” she said.
4. The location of health care facilities might also be shaping this map. Arwady said the prevalence of long-term care facilities, which tend to cluster more on the North Side, might play a role. A lot of the city’s larger hospitals are also in these neighborhoods, she added.
5. The ZIP code data only includes Chicago residents. Roughly 40% of those who have been vaccinated by the city are nonresidents who work in Chicago, Arwady said.
“You don’t see that part on the map, but that is another part of this story,” she said.
6. Health experts say vaccinating only some clusters or segments of the city won’t be enough to end the pandemic.
“To get past COVID, it is critical that we don’t have one part of the city extremely, highly vaccinated and then other parts of the city extremely under-vaccinated,” Arwady said. “That does not get us past COVID. And there will need to be additional work to decrease barriers to vaccination and improve uptake in some of the areas that have started off more slowly.”
eleventis@chicagotribune.com
jsberlin@chicagotribune.com
