Convenience helps close Southeast Side's COVID-19 vaccine gap

Advocate Trinity Hospital, 2320 E. 93rd St., in Chicago, teamed up with the City of Chicago to help bring the COVID-19 vaccine to all interested Chicagoans, regardless of the neighborhood where they reside.

This summer, Advocate Trinity team members joined the city’s Vax Strike Force to deliver the COVID-19 vaccine to residents in their homes and at special pop-up events in their community.

“The city wants to close the gap on vaccine hesitancy, but we’re finding hesitancy isn’t stopping people from getting vaccinated,” said Advocate Trinity's Diabetes Nurse Educator Rosie Bernard, who leads this mobile health initiative. “People will get vaccinated if you make it convenient for them.”

The Advocate Trinity Vax Strike Force team is closing the immunization gap in Chicago’s far south region, which begins at 87th Street, runs south to the village of Riverdale, then spans from Ashland Avenue eastward to the Indiana border, under a $2 million grant. Similar city-supported mobile initiatives are closing the immunization gap in Chicago's other regions.

So far, the Strike Force’s efforts are being well received by the far South Side community. As an example, Bernard pointed to a recent pop-up clinic at St. Kevin’s Church near 105th and Torrence Avenue, where 60 people showed up to get the vaccine.

Since the program’s start in June, Advocate Trinity's Strike Force team has administered up to 15 in-home vaccines a day. That number will increase to 30 vaccines a day in early August. In addition, each upcoming pop-up event will vaccinate 10 or more people.