Here & Now

Vaccine Inequality in Milwaukee

Frederica Freyberg:

Another issue impeding equitable access, vaccine tourism. Early this month, DHS announced a partnership with Walgreens to distribute the vaccine to under-served communities. However, people from outside the area can take up appointments at neighborhood pharmacies where they don’t reside and then expend the limited vaccine supply. Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore spoke to Marisa Wojcik about this and other vaccine inequity in Milwaukee.

Marisa Wojcik:

Why is vaccine tourism creating inequitable access in your Milwaukee district?

Gwen Moore:

Well, I wouldn’t attribute tourism to the entire problem. I mean the entire problem is many of my constituents, people of color, the system is already built up and designed to provide vaccine inadvertently to white people, people who are in the medical profession, people who, you know, as first priority, people who are over 65. The median age of white people, the cost of the baby boomer generation after World War II are white. And so the thing that makes tourism so much more egregious is that the inequities are already built in.

Marisa Wojcik:

And in particular to vaccine tourism, what were you proposing to DHS and to Walgreens in order to prevent that specific issue from happening?

Gwen Moore:

If you are say a Walgreens serving an area where you know that there are higher rates of pandemic or low-income people, it’s very simple to ask for ID and ask for address, to make sure that you’re meeting those clients. But more particularly, we are asking Walgreens to use their same system where they reach out to people to remind them to pick up refill prescriptions, people who are already in their database and live within their service area, to reach out to them, just to notify them that the vaccine is available. And they were receptive to using technology that’s readily available to them. Just sort of thinking out of the box. It’s very, very important to put, I think, extra initiatives into all elements of vaccine hesitation, tourism, lack of availability to certain communities because of age differences. That’s even greater when you get to the Latinx community, that age disparity, and to really create enough vaccine so that we’re not in this “Hunger Games” situation.

Frederica Freyberg:

To see the extended interviews with Dr. Franco and U.S. Representative Moore, visit our website at PBS Wisconsin.org and then click on the news.