Austin Coming Together hosts virtual town hall with mayor’s office discussing impact of COVID-19 on the West Side community
Candance Moore, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Chief Equity Officer talks about the Racial Equity Rapid Response Team. Screenshot from Facebook by Maia McDonald.
On Saturday, April 25, Austin Coming Together (ACT), along with West Side United and the City of Chicago, held the Austin COVID-19 Virtual Town Hall. The event, hosted by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Chief Equity Officer Candance Moore was an opportunity for Austin residents, community organizers, local politicians and other interested parties to get concrete information on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the Austin community.
Austin was named by Mayor Lightfoot, along with Shore Shore and Auburn Gresham, all predominantly black neighborhoods, as one of the most affected neighborhoods in the city in terms of coronavirus. Austin Coming Together is just one of the city’s community organizations part of Lightfoot’s Racial Equity Rapid Response Taskforce.
“It’s a collective effort to address the racial disparities in the COVID-19 mortality outcome and currently the effort will be focused on three communities where the cases of COVID-19 have been the most prevalent,” said Alicia Plomin-Spitler, marketing and development manager for Austin Coming Together. “Austin Coming Together has been identified as a community [resource] needed to help implement and develop strategies to meet the need in Austin in this group because the mayor was looking for boots-on-the-ground [organizations] to be a liaison between the community itself and the mayor’s office.”
Near the beginning of the meeting, Austin Coming Together Executive Director Darnell Shields spoke to the virtual audience, expressing why it was important to him personally that Austin be helped during the pandemic.
“As a lifelong Austin resident, like many of you, I’ve experienced and endured many of the challenges we’ve faced prior to COVID-19,” Shields said. “The decades of public and private investment fueled by systemic racism and poverty in the city and in our country has intensified the number of pre-existing health conditions plague the black community, thus making us more susceptible to the dangers of COVID-19.”
As of Saturday’s meeting, Austin has had 82 residents die from complications related to COVID-19, Shield announced. Alds. Chris Taliaferro (39th), Michael Scott (24th), Emma Mitts (37th) and Jason Ervin (28th) were all on the livestream as well. Ald. Mitts briefly spoke to the audience, expressing her thoughts on what needs to happen for Austin to combat the virus.
“I just want to thank all of you today for allowing us to be able to come together, to be able to voice our concerns and even express the issues that we’re faced with during a time that we never expected in our life,” Mitts said. “And I think that for those that are aware, we need to be doing everything we can to save families that are struggling. It’s going to take all hands on deck. It’s going to take us to be open and transparent. It’s going to take the communication that we have right now so that those who don’t have or don’t know can share this information with one another.”
Mitts also talked about her concerns of people not taking the pandemic seriously enough and the importance of wearing masks.
The town hall, which was live streamed on Facebook, also featured several doctors and other experts who gave concrete information on how exactly Austin has been impacted by the coronavirus and how many out of the over 16,000 positive cases of the virus in Chicago (as of Saturday’s meeting) were residents of the West Side neighborhood.
“The zip code 60639 has been affected the greatest,” Dr. Jennifer Seo of the Illinois Department of Public Health said, “but in terms of total tests in the zip codes that cover Austin, there have been 6,522 individuals tested and 2,101 people who have tested positive. About thirty percent of people who were tested, tested positive.”
With information from the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office, Seo broke down the ages of the 82 deaths in the Austin community. She started off with the fact that individuals over the age of 60 are most likely to be impacted by the coronavirus, before going into other information. As stated by Seo during the town hall, people ages 70 to 79 made up 40 percent of deaths in Austin, followed by ages 60 to 69 making of 23 percent of deaths, ages 80 to 89 making up 16 percent, ages less than 50 making up ten percent, ages 90 and up making up seven percent and 50 to 50 making up four percent. Additionally, 86 percent of those who passed from complications from the coronavirus were 60 years or higher.
Those who had underlying health conditions, such as asthma, diabetes or hypertension in particular, were also more vulnerable to the coronavirus. Austin residents were more impacted by crowded housing, no health insurance and limited food access during the pandemic when compared to Chicago as a whole as well. Black non-Latinx Chicago residents, according to Seo, are 3.5 times more likely to die from coronavirus than white residents.
To address these and other issues, Austin Coming Together will be partnering with West Side United, the City of Chicago and other community organizations in the Racial Equity Rapid Response Taskforce. The main goals for the groups, according to West Side United’s Ayesha Jaco, is to lower the COVID-19 mortality rate in Black and Brown communities and build groundwork for the future in order to address long standing economic, health and social inequalities.
“We’ve activated a group of community leaders health institutions, public health experts, to come together to really help us think through developing a citywide operation that’s hyper-local, that’s in partnership with people who’ve been on the ground in their communities for decades as well to really think through the best way to mitigate this,” Jaco said.
She also said they’re working on the best ways to listen and respond to community-identified needs, to marshal data and set up screenings. The Racial Equity Rapid Response team will use education, prevention, social services and testing and treatment to help address the impact of coronavirus in Austin.
The meeting also addressed common myths related to coronavirus, inviting those watching the live stream to decide whether a statement related to COVID-19 was true or false. Seo recommended social distancing, washing your hands and not touching your face in addition to wearing cloth masks as ways to protect against the virus. According to her, surgical masks and N95 respirators should be left to healthcare and essential works who are more likely to be in close contact with those with the virus.
Another recommendation to the audience was to not get tested until you start exhibiting symptoms. Seo says that a negative test result is not a 100% indication that a person doesn’t have coronavirus.
“It could be that you actually don’t have coronavirus,” Seo said. “It could be that you have coronavirus but because you don’t have symptoms the amount of virus in your body isn’t enough for the test to pick it up. So the concern is you might think you don’t have coronavirus and not do all the preventative things like social distancing, washing your hands, things like that and you could potentially transmit and not take care of yourself. So if you don’t have symptoms, we don’t recommend you get tested right now. “
Another reason for this recommendation, Seo says, is that 80 percent of people with coronavirus have mild symptoms similar to what is experienced during the common cold and that can be treated at home. Those without underlying conditions and who aren’t older are also better suited to self-treat at home. Due to the limited number of tests available locally as well, tests should be left for those who need them the most. For people who are more vulnerable to coronavirus, it’s important to know whether their symptoms are from COVID-19 or something else as it impacts how they are actually treated.
Resources were also provided during the meeting. Screenshot from Facebook by Maia McDonald.
In addition to a Q&A session for those watching the live stream to get their own questions answered, places to go for resources and information were also talked about.
Those looking for information on COVID-19 are encouraged to visit the City of Chicago’s website, where information is updated daily. There, people can also find information on mental health, rental assistance, small business support, elderly residents, small business support, emergency housing and more. Residents can also call the coronavirus hotline at 1 (312)-746-483 or email coronavirus@cityofchicago.org to get specific questions answered. 311 is also a resource residents can go to for information on coronavirus.
Additionally, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health Dr. Allison Arwady provides daily episodes of “The Doc is In: Ask Dr. Arwady” where she answers viewer questions related to coronavirus at 11:00 a.m. everyday on Mayor Lightfoot’s Facebook page.
For those in and around Austin needing testing, Loretto Hospital and PCC Community Wellness Center are both doing testing. PCC, is doing drive-up testing by appointment only. People can call PCC’s coronavirus hotline at 1 (773) 295-3347 Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., in order to get scheduled. More information on where to go for testing can be found on the Illinois Department of Health website.