According to a report from Block Club Chicago, the health department is “looking into” a vaccination event at Trump Tower. Trump Tower in Chicago vaccinated its staff members against the coronavirus, and the managers are being investigated for jumping their employees to the front of the line for the vaccinations by “misusing a city program designed to help out the harder-hit poorer areas of Chicago,” according to the report.
And that doesn’t surprise me in the least since the Trump administration was inundated with line-jumpers amid the raging pandemic.
“A vaccination provider came to the luxury tower — which serves condo residents and hotel guests — last week to vaccinate staff through an event organized by tower management, multiple sources told Block Club,” the outlet reports. “Hotel and tower residence staff members are not eligible to be vaccinated yet — and while a Trump Tower official said the event was done under the city’s Protect Chicago Plus campaign, Chicago Department of Public Health leaders said they aren’t aware of any such vaccination event happening at the tower.”
“The Protect Chicago Plus campaign is meant to target residents of 15 community areas on the city’s South and West sides hit hard by COVID-19. The Downtown area, where Trump Tower is located, is not among them,” the report continues.
A Department of Public Health spokesman told the outlet that they’ve reached out to Trump Tower to find out how the vaccination event occurred.
“We’re looking into it,” the spokesman said. “I will say the Protect Chicago Plus program is intended for those designated communities, so we will be looking to find out what happened.”
“Multiple employees from the tower’s hotel and residence sides told a Trump Tower resident they’ve been vaccinated at the tower over the past few months, despite not appearing to fit into the city’s or state’s eligibility criteria for vaccination, the resident told Block Club,” the report continues. “Last week, a group of young employees told the resident they were offered vaccinations at the tower March 10, the resident said.”
Multiple Trump Tower employees confirmed to Block Club they were given the option as employees to be vaccinated,” the report adds. “One employee who works in a restaurant in the tower said the shots were administered at the Trump property.”
A health department spokesman confirmed to the reporters that “hotel employees shouldn’t be vaccinated yet under current vaccination guidelines” and added that “City officials there aren’t aware of the March 10 vaccination event described by the executive and are looking into it.”
You can read the full report here.