Pritzker's ‘Fakequity’ Problem Surfaces At United Center Vax Site

CHICAGO, IL — Illinois, we have a "fakequity" problem in the governor's office.

The term fakequity — as in fake equity — was coined by an astute observer of Gov. J.B. Pritzker's pandemic policies, which have repeatedly failed to deliver on promises of coronavirus testing and vaccinations in Black and Latino communities suffering the worst COVID-19 consequences.

The latest example of fakequity, of course, is the United Center mass vaccination site.

Pritzker at a Feb. 26 news conference said the stadium's West Side address in a "medically underserved," mostly minority community made vaccinations more accessible to "people of color."

As things turned out, about 63 percent of the people who made appointments at the United Center lived outside Chicago. About 75 percent of the non-Chicagoans who signed up to get shots were either white or Asian American, public health officials said.

"That is obviously not representative of the communities that have been the hardest hit [by COVID-19]," Chicago's public health Commissioner Alison Arwady said.

It is, however, evidence of the fakequity-based propaganda that has been a cornerstone of the Pritzker administration's pandemic policies.

The white billionaire governor running for reelection tried to assert his pandemic will over control of the United Center site, which ultimately is controlled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Pritzker's administration tried to pressure Chicago City Hall to sign on to opening up appointments at the United Center to all Illinois residents 16 and up with underlying conditions.

Last month, sources close to the behind-the-scenes squabble with City Hall told me Pritzker's COVID-19 czar, Derek Lindblom — a venture capitalist and failed Chicago aldermanic candidate with no public health experience — sent emails to city officials saying a refusal to endorse expanded vaccine eligibility at the site would be a deal-breaker.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot balked at the demands. Arwady said Pritzker's policy was a bad idea in Chicago because it followed neither Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations nor common sense.

MORE ON PATCH: Lightfoot Won't Be Bullied By Pritzker's United Center Power Play

Here's one reason why: Too many Chicago minorities and senior citizens at risk of suffering the worst coronavirus consequences would be competing for a limited number of vaccine shots with white suburbanites — who happen to be a key demographic that Pritzker's reelection bid presumably depends upon.

FEMA officials didn't initially get involved. The matter seemed to be settled with an 11th-hour compromise to limit initial vaccine appointments in the stadium parking lots to older people.

But when United Center appointment demographics showed indisputable evidence that President Joe Biden's administration might get caught up in a fakequity scandal, FEMA put the kibosh on Pritzker's broad terms for expanding vaccine eligibility at the Chicago site.

Under pressure from City Hall, FEMA pressed pause on United Center appointments before people from around the state were set to be allowed to start making reservations for shots. When reservations reopen later this week, Chicagoans and Cook County residents will be prioritized for 90 percent of coronavirus vaccine doses at the United Center, sources said.

All along, a top goal of FEMA's megavaccination sites such as the one at the United Center has been to make sure "historically marginalized communities are not left behind" on vaccination efforts.

The Biden administration even sent states a checklist to "understand and fulfill their civil rights obligations" related to FEMA's vaccine distribution effort.

The FEMA vaccination site in Dallas limited eligibility by ZIP code. FEMA teams only gave shots to city residents at the mass vaccination site in Philadelphia. In New York state, FEMA vaccination site appointments were initially only available to people living in ZIP codes with low vaccination rates.

Under Pritzker — who has been pounded for the state's slow rollout of vaccine shots as he prepares a reelection bid — Illinois became the only state to open eligibility to all residents regardless of their addresses at FEMA's United Center vaccine effort.

The result: Pandemic fakequity brought to you by Pritzker. Again.

The governor pulled similar fakequity stunts in April, when he grabbed headlines by promising folks in mostly Black Chicago neighborhoods quick access to coronavirus testing but didn't deliver.

He bragged about coronavirus testing statistics despite an obvious testing void in minority neighborhoods with the highest virus positivity rates.

In May, Pritzker had to be bullied into locating a COVID-19 testing site in the 60620 ZIP code, a Black enclave where residents were among the hardest hit by serious coronavirus complications.

The governor has never acknowledged those failures.

The United Center fakequity fiasco is no different.

Maybe you remember how the governor gleefully bragged the United Center vaccination site was in partnership with his administration. His tone changed in opening remarks at Tuesday's news conference. The governor distanced himself from the effort, reading from a script that referred to the United Center as the "federal government's community vaccination site."

The day before, the governor tried to sell the change in United Center vaccine eligibility as a decision made by FEMA.

Lightfoot's administration ever so gently poked holes in the governor's narrative, saying the decision to refocus United Center vaccine eligibility on Chicago and Cook County residents, particularly Black and Latino populations, was more of a collaborative change "agreed to by all."

What happened, people involved in those talks told me, is that facing statistical evidence that Pritzker's policies created fakequity, the Biden administration caved to City Hall demands for a United Center appointment system that prioritized getting vaccines in the arms of marginalized populations in Chicago and Cook County who needed it the most, as the federal effort intended.

The governor got left standing alone.

He fakequitied himself.

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."

More from Mark Konkol:

• Lightfoot Won't Be Bullied By Pritzker's United Center Power Play
• Most IL Dems Mum As Biden Lets Chicago U.S. Attorney Keep Digging
• With A Little Help Vet Breaks Through Inept Unemployment System
• Army Vet Suffers Consequences Of IL's Inept Unemployment System
• Pritzker's Stats Obsession Will Intensify Vaccine Hunger Games