Lightfoot Won't Be Bullied By Pritzker's United Center Power Play

CHICAGO — Some people "close to the situation" told friendly reporters Gov. J.B. Pritzker is moving forward with a plan to partner with the federal government to open a mass vaccination at the United Center.

Sounds like a good deal, but it comes with a catch. Pritzker wants to do it his way, opening up vaccination appointments to a million more people, making it harder for old folks most likely to die from COVID-19 to get shots.

And he doesn't have Mayor Lori Lightfoot's blessing to launch an effort that Crain's Chicago Business first reported is "aimed squarely at getting out more vaccines to minorities, and particularly African American people" under those guidelines in her city, which handles its own vaccine distribution.

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When Chicago's public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, was asked Thursday about plans for inoculating people at the United Center (when there isn't enough vaccine to go around the way it is), she refused to answer.

"I can't comment on that specifically. We are always looking at expanding. ... Can't say more about that right now," she said.

Sources close to the situation tell me the governor's office has been trying to bully Lightfoot and Arwady to follow Pritzker's edict that everybody in Illinois over 16 with coronavirus comorbidity conditions can get in virtual lines for vaccine doses that aren't available when the feds build a pop-up mass-vax site at the United Center.

Arwady, an epidemiologist and pandemic-science expert, has repeatedly said Pritzker's policy is a bad idea in Chicago because it follows neither Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations nor common sense.

Simply put, letting more people get in line for shots that aren't available makes it harder for old people who are at more at risk of dying from COVID-19 to get inoculation appointments.

The opinion of a renowned epidemiologist overseeing a vaccine distribution that has been more equitable and efficient than the state as a whole must not matter to the Pritzker administration.

Pritzker's COVID-19 czar on the political side, Derek Lindblom — whom you might remember from his failed run for alderman in Lincoln Park— sent emails to city public health officials that not agreeing to expand vaccine eligibility would be a deal-breaker for the United Center site, according to people familiar the correspondence.

Lindblom didn't respond when I reached out to ask him about it.

So, I peppered the city, county and state with public records requests for copies of Lindblom's emails sent related to establishing a vaccination site at the United Center.

Getting governments to produce public records through the Freedom of Information Act, particularly Pritzker's "transparent" and "honest" administration, isn't as expeditious or easy as it should be, according to pretty much anybody who ever filed a request.

About three hours after I filed my requests and tried to contact Lindblom, Crain's published a story citing anonymous sources saying top federal state and local officials are "expected to announce" Friday that "as soon as next month," as many as 7,000 people a day might be able to get COVID-19 vaccination shots in parking lots adjacent to the house that Michael Jordan built.

Since Arwady, who represents the only local official who matters, wouldn't confirm the speculative report, I figure regular folks deserve a look at the behind-the-scenes bickering between a governor responding to the whim of public opinion and a mayor following the advice of a pandemic expert.

What's the rush to announce that sometime in March there might be a vaccination site at the United Center before settling on a vaccination policy that Chicago's top doctor can get behind?

You'll have to ask Pritzker, who has showed himself to be obsessed with statistics and national rankings after being blasted for Illinois' early failures to get coronavirus shots off shelves and into arms.

My bet is he's getting into campaign mode. The governor appeared to spend much of this week at campaign-style events aimed at winning over Black voters in preparation for his 2022 re-election bid as GOP opponents line up to take him on.

On Monday, the governor launched a multi-stop publicity tour after signing a criminal justice law pushed by the legislative Black caucus, most of which, including the end of cash bail, doesn't go into effect until after the next gubernatorial election.

And now, it looks like Pritzker's people — likely also known as "sources close to the situation" — are trying to bookend the week with a racial equity-centric headline suitable for campaign commercials.

Why else would those people hand out a "scoop" on a news conference in the only corner of Illinois run by a Black woman where COVID-19 inoculations are outside the Pritzker administration's control — all to tout an outside effort to vaccinate "African American people, who have been hardest hit by the pandemic but who have been slow to receive doses, so far"?

The rush to appear before reporters Friday reeks of a pandemic version of the “I know what's best for you" white-savior spin that Caucasian candidates connected to Chicago's Democratic machine for have, for decades, trotted out during campaign season in an effort to win the votes of Black folks.

And Arwady's United Center dodge during a news conference — where she ticked off all the based-on-science reasons for disregarding the governor's decision to expand vaccine eligibility — was a clear signal Lightfoot isn't on board bending to Pritzker's vaccine policies.

MORE ON PATCH: Pritzker's Stats Obsession Will Intensify Vaccine Hunger Games

How can you tell Pritzker's expansion of vaccine eligibility is a bad idea for Chicago and the Cook County suburbs?

Well, Lightfoot and Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle — bitter political rivals — issued a joint statement earlier this month saying they won't follow the governor's vaccine edict because dose shortages in their jurisdictions would create a Hunger Games-like scenario for elderly folks most at risk of dying from COVID-19 seeking shots.

Trying to get a COVID-19 shot at United Center mass-inoculation site Pritzker's way — adding a million more people to the mix without enough vaccines for people already eligible — would be like trying to score a ticket to a Bulls playoff game before Jordan left the building.

Late Thursday, sources close to the situation said we shouldn't expect the Pritzker scenario to play out when the feds turn United Center parking lots into a giant vaccine depot.

Until Chicago gets enough vaccine for old folks who need it most, it'll be grandmas and grandpas who get to be at the front of the line at the United Center — no matter what the governor's re-election campaign had planned.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

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