* Gov. Pritzker with some good news for a change…

We had tested 5660 people in the preceding 24 hours on Wednesday. And yesterday, we surpassed 9000 tests. Today, we met our goal of 10,000 daily tests. In fact we surpassed it with 16,124.

* More interesting news…

The overall positive rate for today’s batch of tests is about 17%, which is well below our cumulative average of 21%.

It’s too early to say whether this is a result of expanded testing criteria, versus an indicator of flattening the curve, but it’s a positive sign nonetheless for everyone when more people are getting tested and there is a lower ratio of positives

Please pardon all transcription errors.

* Pritzker continued…

Surpassing 10,000 tests is a very important milestone, not only because it allows us to isolate more of those who are COVID positive so that they don’t spread the infection, but also because it moves us in the direction of expanding our surveillance for outbreaks.

More testing means we can potentially lower the infection rate. So we’re going to continue to push that number up. Our ability to test and get results quickly is key to our ability to map the presence of this virus, and to gradually reduce our mitigation measures and get more people back to work.

* Public testing sites…

We now have 112 public testing sites in every one of IDPH’s 11 regions, including eight sites in the Rockford region, eight sites in the Peoria region, four sites in the Springfield region, four in the Edwardsville region, 31 sites in the Marion region, eight sites in the Champaign region, 22 sites in the city of Chicago, nine sites in the southwest suburbs, three sites in the west suburbs, five sites in the northwest suburbs and 10 sites in the north suburbs.

Remember, those are only the sites that are available to the public and the tests at those locations are entirely free. Beyond those 112 locations, there are healthcare providers that conduct tests for their own existing patients, the full list of public testing sites with hours, testing parameters and contact information is available on our coronavirus website, coronavirus.illinois.gov.

* Antibody tests…

I also want to talk briefly today about antibody tests, which have been in the headlines recently and have created a lot of buzz. I want to make sure that people have the facts about whether and how these tests are useful.

In theory, these tests could be an effective tool. We’re craving answers in an uncertain time and antibody tests offer the potential for more security. But I’m afraid we’ve seen many of these tests promoted in a way that errs on the side of irresponsible.

To be clear, these tests are not quite where we need them to be to offer a true metric of immunity in Illinois. This is not an Illinois specific problem. As of today, there still are no antibody blood tests certifiably proven to accurately and consistently diagnose COVID-19 antibodies. There are several reasons for that.

First, no one yet knows the true sensitivity and specificity of these tests. That is how accurate or inaccurate they are. Obviously you want to test to be accurate and not offer many false positives or false negatives. That kind of accuracy is in part tied to how long it’s been since a person, potentially had the virus, since it takes, each of us time to produce antibodies, and it’s in part tied to the quality of the test.

Second, this is a novel virus, entirely new. So researchers don’t yet know the extent to which having COVID-19 antibodies equals, having immunity. That’s a question whose answers will only be revealed over weeks or months, and maybe even years, for example, is there a certain exposure level at which antibodies don’t protect you. Or, if you can become immune. How long would immunity last?

Third, it’s not yet confirmed that these tests are able to explicitly identify COVID-19 antibodies versus Corona viruses that cause things like the common cold. The test must, must definitively identify antibodies for COVID-19, and nothing else for them to be fully effective. […]

We’re monitoring those studies and we’re planning how we could deploy those tests when they’re ready. As soon as they prove themselves accurate and reliable, I will make it a priority to get them into our communities as widely as we can. What I won’t do is run full speed ahead with these tests before they’re proven. Because, among other things, we will be offering people a false sense of security. I’ve said since the beginning that here in Illinois, we will rely on factual data, and we will lead with the science. That, and the goodwill of the people of Illinois, will be what sees us through this pandemic.

* Dr. Ezike…

4828 people were hospitalized across our state. 25% of those patients or 1225 were in the ICU, and 58% of those ICU patients or 709 patients were on ventilators

* More from Dr. Ezike…

IDPH is pushing testing materials to more and more long term care facilities. Since last Friday, we have pushed testing materials to 37 different long term care facilities, some who are actively experiencing outbreaks and some that had not identified a single case. Our hope is that by testing staff and residents in the long term care facilities located in areas with high levels of community transmission, we can detect cases earlier and potentially before an outbreak occurs.

* On to questions for the governor. So the phases that you mentioned yesterday. Obviously stay at home, extended through the end of May, the phases that you mentioned are those to come during May or they come in June? (Are we there yet?)…

They’ll come as soon as we possibly can. And in order to get to the next phase, we really need to see our peak and begin to move downward for, I think the suggestion of 14 days is the right one. And so seeing a downward movement 14 days in a row would give us a pretty good indication that we’re heading in the right direction on a consistent basis

* Are you suggesting people just kind of hold off for right now and not get antibody testing done?…

No. I’m just explaining why we’re not rushing ahead with massive antibody testing. The fact is that verifying those tests has been difficult for everybody. And we don’t want people to get false negatives or false positives that would lead people to believe that they’re immune or that they’re not immune and mistakenly so. W e just want to make sure that we have the right information that is available with the tests that actually are effective. And so we’re not going to plunge into that ourselves at the state level. Having said that there are hospitals and other people who are using serology tests, and they’re working with the you know the fact that there’s some percentage of those that are going to be negative or positive falsely.

* Baseball. Do you think baseball will be played here in Chicago this summer?…

I hope so. But I don’t know

* Can you give us the exact number of people being hired to help IDES with the unemployment claims? We’ve gotten news tips from Chicagoans asking how they can apply for those jobs…

Yeah. So we certainly want people to reach out to IDES that would be the best way to find out. They go through a process as you know when you get hired for the state. We’ve tried to speed that process up through for CMS. But as you know, we also hired an outside firm to help us with some overflow of calls and so on. So, I’ll be sure, we’ll be sure and make it so, we’ll be sure to have IDES post on its website how people could apply for any available positions. It’s an excellent point, if it’s not already available on the website I’ll make sure that it is.

* Why not open the phone lines longer for longer hours until the IDES bottleneck kind of slows down?…

Yeah, so one of the things I explained a little while ago when I was talking about unemployment as one of the featured topics for the day was that the federal government actually has requirements of training, and that training requirement is rather lengthy process.

And because people are giving their personal information to somebody over the phone, and you wouldn’t want to give that to somebody who might misuse that information or doesn’t understand how private that information really is. And so it’s very hard to expand the workforce, we’re doing it, but very hard to do it. And so, when you say leaving it open longer, people are working overtime. But in terms of running a second or third shift. Again, you would need more people and the training is really a gating issue again have. Having said that, we’ve expanded the phone lines, and the number of people that are covering those phones, who are already IDES employees but have been repositioned so that there are, as I recall the last time I looked at the statistics and I look at them reasonably frequently, we’re doing about three to four times the number of calls now in a day that we were doing at the beginning of this, let alone last year where it’s an even larger multiple.

* The Symphony of Joliet nursing home says that they need the National Guard to assist them in conducting conducting tests, the more we can test the more we can prevent the spread of virus is the governor’s office looking in to doing this at this facility or any others?…

Indeed, the whole point of expanding testing across the board has been so that we can go in starting with people who are very vulnerable. Also our first responders, making sure that we really cover the waterfront so to speak of everybody that is in let’s say a priority one status, nursing home residents and the staff and nursing homes are certainly in that category. And indeed, Dr. Ezike talked about I think yesterday or the day before the fact that we’ve that we’ve been going in, in fact we’ve identified the nursing homes. We’re going in ratably I guess is the right word, every day to test a new nursing home to make sure we get everybody there tested in the ones where there are no COVID positives already to make sure that we can keep it from getting COVID positive and then in the ones where there are COVID we’re assuming everybody is infected right i mean we’re treating it as if everybody is infected. … If they have made a special request for Illinois National Guard, we probably would have fulfilled it

* It seems to be harder to find numbers on COVID-19 recovery or hospital releases here in Illinois opposed to some other states. Maryland it’s listed with the rest of the daily numbers. We know that you’ve explained the difficulty and getting this data before but why are there states reporting daily, and we aren’t?…

Dr. Ezike: Well we have been trying to share with recovery data. Itry to update that once a week, in terms of us being able to pull out the hospital data. That is something again that we have to have the input before we can put the output. And so when we have missing pieces of data and if you push that out, it actually creates more questions than it offers answers in terms of if the numbers don’t match but we’re working with all of our partners to try to get as much data, put in and updated in a timely basis. A lot of times, even if we put out some data, there would be additional inputs that would come that would make us have to update the data and I know that can be a little bit confusing as well but we have nothing but the goal of being transparent but it’s also important to be able to put out trusted and and reliable data as well.

* Should grocery stores and other businesses turn people away if they’re not wearing a face covering some employers have safety concerns about such confrontations?…

I understand, but we have put in a requirement for people to wear face coverings. And so I, you know, just like with everything else you’re not allowed to go into a restaurant without wearing shoes.

So it’s perfectly acceptable to tell people that you’re not allowed in if you’re not wearing a face mask. Remember a face covering is protecting other people. So this person is being not just disrespectful to everybody in the grocery store, but also potentially infecting other people, by not wearing a face covering so I would suggest that be the language that’s used when you’re talking to somebody who’s not using a face guard first to just ask them please would you get a face covering and explain to them you can even use a T shirt. There are plenty of examples of how you can create a face covering for free, out of your own clothing or other items you may have in your own home or apartment.

* Reaction to the lawsuit filed by state representative Bailey claiming a violation of civil rights?…

Well, first as you know I have relied on science and research and doctors and advice. You know models from the experts to address this pandemic and it is a pandemic it is an emergency, it has been named such by the federal government we are in a state of emergency now federally. We are in a disaster proclamation for the state of Illinois. And for as long as we have the number of 2700 people getting infected in a day, people that are being that are their fatalities. And that’s happening on a somewhat consistent basis, thousands of people.

We are in an emergency so frankly, I think that a lawsuit about whether or not this is an emergency is a political maneuver. At a time when we probably shouldn’t be dealing with politics but rather simply addressing the emergency that no matter what political party you belong to.

* Should we assume June 1 the stay at home order will end, even if it’s gradually? (Are we there yet?)…

I’ve talked a lot about the way we would do that phasing in, back into the economy and again, I think that the new normal that occurs here, and I hope that it could occur before the end of May, but again it will be all based on whether people are getting sicker and where we are in the curve.

* A sheriff in Douglas County says he doesn’t intend to enforce your modified order. In such cases, how do you intend to enforce your order if it’s crucial to saving lives?…

Well, I can say that, then the sheriff is going to let people get sick and they’re going to be people who end up in the hospital and maybe even people in ICU and on ventilators. So, I feel badly for the people of that county that they have somebody who doesn’t recognize that this is a worldwide and very virulent virus, that is, you know, has is among us, it’s not going away. And we’re going to have to follow the rules in order for us to get through this and keep people alive and reopen our economy. […]

People, whether your Sheriff is enforcing it or not, you know what you need to do to keep yourself safe. We’ve laid it all out you can go to the IDPH website and read all about you know why you should wear a face covering and why it is important that you stay home and that we’ve only kept a central businesses open, plus the other ones that we’ve added on for May. So I think I would just encourage the people of that county to protect themselves

* Following reports that COVID was already in the United States before the first reported case, California Governor Newsome plans to order medical examiner’s to go back and look at autopsies for December in January. Do we plan on doing that as well?…

No. I know when our first case was identified was the second case in the US. Of course it begs the question, you know, that individual was not on a flight that came in after any travel restrictions and screenings were in place. So, for sure, if we think that this virus you know originated in, [garbled] and people were traveling to the US, it is possible or very likely that cases individuals who have this had come before are first diagnosed cases so potentially there have been other illnesses that were not appreciated. And I know that maybe there will be request by families maybe medical examiners will be reviewing some of their records, we wouldn’t stop any of that. If they identify new cases we will have to adjust our case counts, and we will absolutely do that to update our data.

* Many garden centers that also sold landscaping needs were already allowed to stay open. What specifically does this modification change?…

Actually nothing. It just makes it much more explicit. There were people who didn’t understand the order, they were spreading rumors that you couldn’t keep your garden center open or that we had somehow prohibited people from selling seeds. I don’t know where that is anywhere in this order prior and so we just put some language in there to make sure that people understood it completely.

* Are mayors and towns able to make their own decisions on what should remain closed, even if they conflict with your modifications?…

Anybody can be more stringent than the modifications that we’ve made that’s absolutely true that if you have a golf course in your area or you have a business that we’ve said could do curbside pickup, and you’ve decided that’s not safe in your area where that business isn’t safe, doing what they’re doing that is completely up to local officials to be to enact more stringent regulations than the ones we’ve put forward.

* You said the state expanded agreements with private commercial labs, do you have assurances that test results will come back faster than the seven to 12 days you’ve complained about before?…

Yes indeed in fact we, that’s one of our biggest concerns. So we tried to focus on commercial labs, the ones that we have agreements we’ve tried to focus on commercial labs that are in our area. Number one where we could have an agreement where we knew that they would return those test results quickly. And what what Hannah is referring to, just for everybody else, is that the large commercial laboratory companies which are not located here they may have a small location here but they’re generally not located here. Most of their testing capacity, they are returning their tests in seven to 12 days we just find that too long for most people. Nevertheless, there are doctors here in the state who are sending their tests to those labs and not getting those returned test results in that quite that that very long time.

* It’s been several days since the state began listing nursing home deaths and cases we’ve been seeing clusters of elderly dying in Cook County every day. Are we seeing an uptick, are there any other precautions in place to try to limit the number of cases and deaths in the state’s nursing homes?…

I think we’ve both been speaking towards this, we’re trying to identify, of course we’re aggressively working with places where cases have already been identified. And with our strike teams with our consultants with our infection control, preventionist, but we’re also trying to reach into neighborhoods where we know that there are cases in the community. But yet, an establishment in which there isn’t identified cases so that’s when we’re going in and testing all the staff and all the residents, so that we can maybe get a jump on identifying a positive case and then do the appropriate isolation and segregation. For those who identify, so our pre emptive proactive approach of mass testing we’re hoping is a way to get ahead of that, but yes we’re absolutely trying to fortify our strategies to try to get ahead of the outbreaks.

* Politico: The new stay at home order won’t allow the state legislature to return at all to Springfield to meet its May 31 budget deadline. Can you detail how lawmakers will adjust to the new order? [This is a basic separation of powers issue. The EO doesn’t apply to the GA. He can’t prevent the GA from meeting. Let’s move along.]

* What do you say to business owners who say that their workers are making more on unemployment and are choosing to remain off work until their benefits run out, even though they could go back to their jobs in many cases?…

That’s, I just, I don’t know what to say. That was an argument that Senator Graham made when they were trying to pass the bill. And I just think that’s a ridiculous argument.

People want to get back to work. They do have the opportunity to earn more money at work than they do with the extra $600 that’s being provided to them per month is, that’s not enough to make a difference for these families.

* What should someone with an underlying condition do is told to either return to work under the relaxed at home order or be fired especially in light of the recent restraining order issued by a Sangamon County judge in the workman’s compensation case?…

They should report to the Department of Labor for the state of Illinois. They also have their their own union. There are other authorities on a local level. In particular, the Department of Public Health in their local county. But the Department of Labor certainly is an important place for them to go.

* What are some of the key differences between Illinois and other states in the Midwest path when it comes to reopening the economy?…

There are a lot of differences between these states. First I’d tell you we have the best people in the entire country here in Illinois. And then the next best are those in the Midwest. But the fact is that we have different infection rates across the different states. We have different characteristics. Some states like Ohio have multiple sort of medium to large sized cities, Illinois has Chicago which is a massive city, and some medium sized cities. So there are a lot you know so you see infection rates are different and and regionally different and so on. So, there are a lot of differences but there are also a lot of things in common and again, when we’re thinking about reopening the economy we’re talking about looking at industries, and many of the industries in the Midwest are similar.

* What are your thoughts about President Trump’s advocacy of disinfectant injections as possible treatment for COVID-19? And what do you make of Trump’s contention today he was only being sarcastic with those comments?…

I don’t know if you’re goading me with that question. I mean it’s dangerous what the President suggested yesterday was dangerous. And he clearly was not making any facial expressions or any discussion that would make it sound as if he was joking in any way. And I think he’s, you know, all I can say is I hope to God that nobody listened to him yesterday.

* On life after the pandemic, what elements of the pandemic life will stay with us afterward and what parts of our pre pandemic lives are probably gone?…

I don’t think that I can think that far into the future i mean I have a hard time imagining what what the fall will look like.

But I certainly know that one effect of the pandemic is that Illinoisans have really pulled together to support each other. It’s amazing. I don’t know who, you know, in Cook County in Chicago if you, if you are even in your apartment or your house at eight o’clock at night. The entire city in fact the entire county are out cheering for our health care workers, cheering for our first responders, cheering for all the essential workers because of the risks that they’re taking. And I mean, that’s just one example, people in downstate, there are people delivering meals to seniors at their homes because seniors are afraid sometimes to go out and certainly are vulnerable and people are bringing meals and putting them in their front at the front door and ringing the bell and leaving so that you know they don’t have any contact or any transmission. And I just think it is testament to the greatness of the people that the state of Illinois to the kindness of the people in the state of Illinois. So, I don’t know, maybe that was already here but it’s so much more evident now, and I think maybe one lasting legacy of this is that we will have demonstrated to each other that you know that we are all in this together and that we will stand up for each other when things get tough.

* By moving the general assembly into special session, if that’s a way for the Democratic leadership to strong arm an agenda with the three fifths majority requirement? [Huh?]…

No.

Nothing’s been decided about how the legislature would meet. And so I look forward to having more conversations as I already have had with the leaders, and certainly their input about whether we would end up in a special session or a regular session, you know helpful, but the legislature is going to have to make its own decisions at this point.

* Can you debunk some of the persistent rumors about your order? Are any businesses connected to you profiting from the pandemic, do hospitals get more money based on their number of COVID cases?…

I heard the first part of this, what was the do hospitals make more money on COVID-19? No in fact hospitals lose money.

Hospitals make money on elective surgeries. That’s true. And one of the reasons that we allowed some hospitals in regions that have enough bed availability to have elective surgeries, is we wanted to make sure that they could pay their bills, many of them, particularly downstate are dependent upon elective surgeries to balance their budget to just keep the lights on. And so we wanted to make it easier and also there are people who have had to put off surgeries for all of this time, because we wanted to make sure there were enough beds available. We didn’t know how virulent this virus was going to be and whether we were going to have every hospital full. And so after five weeks, it’s clear that in some areas of the state there is real danger of that in other areas of the state there’s not and so that is allowing elective surgeries now with some restrictions. I think was the right thing to do.

As to whether I own anything that’s making any money during this, I mean, first of all, I am everything that I have is in a blind trust, and I’m trying to think of anything that I was involved with before, but no.

* I MESSED UP MY OWN QUESTION!. Mayor Lightfoot unveiled her city’s recovery plan yesterday, when do you expect to do the same for the state of what might it look like? [I meant to say recovery plan committee, but goofed!]…

I don’t think a recovery plan was issued yesterday, that committee was put together. And so, the state will do this differently than the city will. And I’ll be doing as I have been doing, speaking with mayors and and leaders from around the state, from Southern Illinois, in Central Illinois and around Chicago and of course in The Rockford area too, and Western Illinois and making sure that we’re taking into account the real diversity of the state, and all the industries and the differences between those industries manufacturing will have a very different set of rules for reopening than, let’s say restaurants or bars would. And so, this is something, it’s a complex endeavor. I don’t see it as one where you can get one committee of people together to make decisions about the entire economy.

* The Harrisburg city council has called a special meeting for Tuesday to consider a proposal to open up some retailers to in-house customers on May 1 despite your extension. Your thoughts on this, would there be consequences?…

That would be a violation of the stay at home rule and there, certainly I have enforcement mechanisms available to me but I would look forward to not having to do that.

* How can people get masks if they don’t have credit cards to order online? What masks and vendors do you recommend?…

I actually would suggest to people that there are a lot of ways to use a free mask. I certainly am not going to recommend a particular mask maker. But I saw a video of how somebody can take a T shirt and use it to make a mask with tying it behind their head and and so on. But, you know, I’m not gonna recommend, I think there are lots of ways to do it. I would recommend somebody go online and just type in homemade mask or homemade face covering. And they’re much less expensive than trying to buy one online.

* Much of the concern has been around masks, but in some areas now there are an insufficient number of gowns being a problem. Has acquiring and supplying gowns or any other type of PPE become a problem here in Illinois?…

I wouldn’t call it a problem in the sense that we’ve run out of them entirely in the state or in any particular place. However, you are correct, each one of these things as you can imagine, has been in shortage in fact, all of them at the beginning, we’re in massive shortage.

But we’ve been able to bring, first it was masks, we wanted to make sure that we had N95 masks that are very hard to acquire. We’re still acquiring them but we’ve had a pretty good success at that. We wanted to have other kinds of face coverings like surgical masks or general medical masks. G owns are in shorter supply and indeed I spoke about this with our team this morning. Because we have actually a number of gowns, lots of gowns that are on order now and I don’t know what date they will arrive, but we do have them on order. And I know that you know our expectation is that we will not run out of gowns in the state.

* Now that you’ve met the 10,000 tests goal for a single day is this level of testing sustainable for the long term is there any benchmark to aim for?…

You know the challenges in the supply chain in order to get us to 10,000 were immense. And indeed, this was raised on a call that we had today with the White House task force that everybody wants to expand. I heard one of the governors saying they have 4000 tests today, and they’re having trouble expanding from that to 6000 a day. So everybody’s having trouble. Having said that, my expectation is that we will be able to sustain 10,000 again it will let you know like many other things depend upon how many people go to a testing site on any given day.

How many tests we get done is dependent on how many people go and get a test done, in part, and then on the supplies, so my expectation is that we’ll be able to maintain this level. My hope and expectation and then of course this isn’t enough. And so the idea here is we’ve got to keep going. And we will.

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