As you know, more widespread testing is a key goal for combating COVID-19. It’s a vital feature of our long term path to building a new normal. Along that path we need to make testing more available and convenient to more people. So I’m pleased to announce two additional state run drive through testing sites, both of which are available to anyone who has COVID like symptoms and wants to test, even without a doctor’s order.
Today in Aurora, we opened a new drive thru at the Chicago Premium Outlets outdoor shopping mall, located at 1650 Premium outlet Boulevard in Aurora, that location can take up to 600 specimens per day.
And starting on Friday in Rockford, we will open a drive thru location at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford, the address there is 1601 Parkview Avenue, and that location will be able to take 500 specimens, a day when fully ramped up between these two new sites, and our three existing sites in Markham, Bloomington, and in Harwood Heights, our five drive-throughs can run up to 2900 tests per day when the Rockford test site is fully up and running.
As always, please pardon all transcription errors.
* PPE…
We’ve now sent out more than 15 million items, including 7.7 million surgical masks, nearly 1.7 million N95 masks, over 30,000 gowns, over 6.4 million gloves and over 350,000 face shields to locations all across the state of Illinois.
We also have outstanding orders due to arrive in the coming days and weeks with an additional 25.5 million NK and N95 masks [I’m not quite sure of that bit because I wasn’t paying attention and was relying on the transcription], 25 million surgical and general medical masks, 8.4 million gowns and coveralls, 14 million gloves and 7.5 million face shields and goggles.
* Dr. Ezike…
At the end of yesterday, we had 4665 individuals in Illinois who were hospitalized with COVID-19, of those 1220 were in the ICU and 747 of those ICU patients were on ventilators.
* On to questions for the governor. Got a long list of questions from colleagues here but wanted to begin with one of my own. The argument has been made regarding the stay at home order that the intention or the goal was, was not to eliminate COVID-19 by April 30, that was never going to happen, but to buy time for the health care capacity to increase for the ICU beds to increase to get the ventilators and the PPE to get the alternate care facilities up and running, including McCormick Place and credit to the administration, a lot of that has been accomplished in a short amount of time. So the argument has been made that, because the healthcare capacity is in a much better place right now. and because of the curve and the peak may be coming later and lower than initially projected why not open things up after April 30 just in a slightly more robust way than you’d so far indicate now…
I appreciate that question and I think people need to understand actually the principal purpose of the stay at home order was to make sure that fewer people got sick and fewer people would die than would otherwise without a stay at home order. And as you’re suggesting in the last part of your comments, the curve gets pushed out when you do that push down, and that’s good because, as you’re trying to build capacity you’re trying to raise the line, you know that you don’t want to go above of how many beds, do you have how many ICU beds, do you have how many ventilators do you have. You want to raise the line so that you can fit all of the patients and the needs underneath that line of capacity, let’s say, and you want to continue to make sure that that wave of patients doesn’t go above the line. You don’t necessarily need to continue to build capacity right. If we can’t build out more McCormick places.
But what you want to do is make sure that the number of people who get sick is kept down. And so that’s really the purpose of a stay at home order, it was the purpose of the original, you know, canceling of, as you may recall canceling of the parades and St Patrick’s Day parade and then closing of restaurants and bars so that’s what I think people need to pay attention to.
Now, obviously, you know, the better we do with this, right, the better we do with this, the more likely it is that we can start to think about what are the safe ways to begin to reopen things, so that people can go back to work people could go back to school. Are there ways to do that that keep people safe.
Some of the things we’ve suggested already like everybody wearing a mask, are some of what’s one idea among a bunch, that will help us get to keeping under the capacity and making sure that few people as few people as possible get sick. I think most people understand the need for avoiding a resurgence of the virus.
* I mean, is there a scenario in which you can open up the economy without there being some increase in cases and fatalities or are you going to have to make a very difficult decision. In terms of balancing increase with in order to avoid creating dire harm…
Well I think I’ve foreshadowed for everybody and I think it’s widely understood that the things that you need in order to open the economy are things that we don’t quite yet have in place, nor does any state. Some states are reopening anyway, that’s their choice I think people might get sick, many people might get sick as a result of it.
But look, what have I said right, testing tracing treating and PPE. And while we’re working very hard on PPE and testing and spinning up a contact tracing effort that will be very large at the end. Those are three things that we have to work on we’re not there yet, you know we’ve talked a lot about testing. We’re just not there yet.
And so, having said that you can make tweaks and moves and you know as you move along here. And as we learn more. Remember the researchers are learning things as we go to. Nobody was saying, everybody has to wear a mask at the beginning, nobody was saying that. Now, that’s pretty common understanding among the epidemiologists and others that it makes sense if you’re going to be outside and, each of you wears them. And you don’t have to wear an N95 mask, you just need some face covering because it’s your droplets that you don’t want to convey to somebody else and you don’t want them conveying it to you.
So once again, all these things are going to be kind of the new normal going forward and allow us to do things to loosen things up and begin to as you’re saying reopen the economy.
* At what point though, does the human cost of keeping the economy closed, the health problems that arise from joblessness etc. outweigh or commensurate to the health costs…
Obviously these are things that I weigh every day and I think about all the time because I understand that it’s challenging for people, there’s a mental health cost in addition to financial costs for everybody, this is going on, it’s having an effect on everybody. And so, I like everybody I wanted to be back to normal as fast as possible. I think we’re all recognizing that normal is going to look a little bit different going forward until there’s a vaccine, until the we can literally rid our state and our country and our planet of this scourge of COVID-19. Things are going to be a little bit different I think, we’re all going to have to be a lot more careful. And while we’re being careful, it allows us to begin to open things up more.
He went on for a while longer, but you get the idea.
* Yesterday during the White House briefing Dr. Birx mentioned New York, New Orleans and specifically Chicago, were doing quote much better. Do you agree with that assessment and how closely is your team consulting with federal government on modeling and determination of the peak?…
We are indeed doing better and I want to make sure everybody understands and look at New York right i mean they’re they’ve, they’ve seemingly flattened their curve, but it’s flattened at a very at a reasonably high level, but flat is way better than you know than the direction that they were going. And the same thing is true in Louisiana and the same thing is true in Chicago. So, I absolutely agree with things are better. And so that that’s a very good sign of, you know how the direction that things are going.
* To the second part of the question…
They don’t have, they are not using seemingly that data from Illinois as far as I know. And they have not offered to help with our data, or with our estimation of our curve. They in fact worked for a long time using that public one that people, others were using the IHME curve, which is inaccurate as regards Illinois, for example. They show a much lower number of hospital beds on their site than we actually have. So it’s very hard to, you know, they don’t have the data that we have, for whatever reason, so, you know, I would say what we have and the experts we have here are what we need I think to get good modeling and there are a number of institutions that have modeled Chicago. county, state and we are looking at those.
* One of our unemployed viewers says that she’s tried getting through to IDES quote hundreds of times without success. She finally reached out to the governor’s office and the matter was in fact quickly resolved. Would you recommend that other frustrated unemployed workers contact your office as a last resort?…
I certainly want to make sure that everybody gets what they need from our IDES and I will say that there’s been a vast improvement, I watched the numbers, I get a report every day. And we are processing gosh, I think 17 times the number. The last report I saw 17 times the number in a single day that we did a single day last year. So just to give you a sense of the magnitude of the problem. […]
Remember, the biggest issue is we can’t look at their private information, the governor’s office, right, we can’t process for them. And so, we have limited ability to really do anything except to hand it off back to IDES. And maybe get some attention to it.
* Summer camp business owners and parents said they say that they are waiting on official word from you to make a decision about whether summer camps will proceed or not, when can they expect that decision?…
Well, I’m not making decisions about summer camps. The summer camps themselves and I know parents will make those decisions and I feel terrible not having a perfect answer for them because as we’ve seen, you have to really watch all these numbers and see which direction we’re going to know to even begin to start to project when could you. And then, of course, is it possible to do social distancing in the context of a summer camp if people are staying overnight, for example, or even in a day camp, aren’t they often gathering in large groups in a summer camp. So I think these are all things that we’ll have to watch the numbers and see how things are going.
* Missouri’s governor has said that he intends to reopen most of the state as soon as next week, Missouri. Actually, May 4, he made a correction. Given that so many people in Metro East live and work in that same region, have you had any luck working with Governor Parson to convince him why that may not be a good idea?…
No, although I think I’ve been very vocal, I think all the governors know where I stand on what kind of a set of principles ought to be operated upon in order to think about reopening. It’s why we created this Midwest pact of states and we reached out to Missouri. They were not interested in joining that pact and similarly with Iowa.
* When will you allow elective surgeries to resume? Governor Cuomo is allowing them starting next week…
Yeah, we’re looking at that as we are in lots of other areas. […]
I’ve gotten suggestions from all across both sides of the aisle of elected officials as well as all across the industry so we’re considering a lot of different things
* Mitch McConnell said today that he’d be open to letting states file for bankruptcy to deal with economic losses from coronavirus, is that something you’ve considered or would consider addressing with state lawmakers?…
No.
* Back on April 5 you said that you had not had a haircut recently and that you were starting to get a little shaggy Have you gotten your haircut since then and if so who cut your hair?…
Does it look any less shaggy now. No… I was joking that I’ll end up wearing a ponytail at some point. We’re all looking forward to that.
* Rockford Mayor McNamara wants small retailers hard hit by big box stores to reopen with social social distancing or for you to ban big box stores from selling non essential goods. During the stay at home order. Are you considering his proposal?…
I haven’t seen that proposal and Mayor McNamara is a very thoughtful mayor. I certainly would like to look at how they are configuring their suggestion. But I spoke with mayors all across the state, about what’s of concern in their communities and I’m trying to take all of that into consideration as we make changes, not just now, but as we move forward, obviously. Even in the President’s plan for reopening there’s this contemplation of phases. And so we’re going to be looking at each of these things with regard to those phases.
* What specific metric has the multi state group come up with to determine when to reopen? Is it a downward trend of the number of positive cases the number of deaths, the hospitalization rates, is that going to be regionalised?…
We certainly talk about that as a group, we have shared our best ideas and that’s really the purpose of this pact. So I will look at the common interests that we have and then look at those common things that are good for Illinois, that come out of that pact. But that’s one of the reasons for that, we have a pact like that as we have a lots of things in common as Midwestern states. So I know that we’ll be able to kind of, let’s say, keep people safe and healthy. While we’re reopening things, in part because we share borders and ideas with one another.
* Responding to another question, Dr. Ezike said 2500 healthcare workers have contracted the virus “and we think that we know of potentially eight deaths.”
* Rep. Batinick said today that he expects restaurants would be among the last businesses to reopen. Is that also your thinking and what would it take to reopen restaurants for dining in safely?
All I can say is that I’ve read a number of the reports people have put together, including one that was done by AEI the American Enterprise Institute and a few others. And the suggestion, kind of the collective suggestion is that industries like restaurants and hospitality are harder to open than some others which are much easier to have social distancing, for example in a large warehouse, than it is in a restaurant where there might be booths and tables next to one another.
* Asked again about Mitch McConnell…
I think that Majority Leader McConnell is certainly important to the process of getting things done in Washington DC, but he’s not the only person involved. And there are an awful lot of Senators on both sides of the aisle that disagree with him. So, I’m hopeful that as a result of work that they’re doing those senators that believe that states and local governments deserve and need additional support…
* Asked about House Republican request that state parks be reopened…
It’s something that we absolutely have considered. I’ve heard a lot about it from people who live in areas where the state parks have been closed.
Remember that one of the biggest reasons that we closed state parks originally was the state workers who work there who have to work in close proximity. Even though you might think of a state park as being quite large. The state workers, how they work right is often in a building together, and in trucks, in which there might be multiple people that are in the truck as they travel around the park. And so that that’s obviously not at the beginning of this, that was not something that was acceptable to close proximity, and even now, and so we’ve talked a lot about you know how we might make changes that would allow people to use state parks.
* In suing your administration today, heads of major business group said that recent COVID related extension for workers comp benefits were pretty much unilaterally imposed on them without consultation or debate. Is that true?…
That is not true. And I don’t really want to comment any further because I know it’s a subject of litigation.
* The Association of Illinois Chiefs of Police is contending that felons convicted of violent crimes are being released due to COVID-19, is that correct?…
As you know I review applications for commutations of sentences as governor. It’s what every governor does, you can look back through, you know, I have the records of each of the governors Republican and Democratic so and and I do commute sentences so the contention that I’m looking at and actually do commute sentences, that’s an accurate depiction. I’m not sure what implication they’re making there.
* As you consider extending the stay at home order, a majority of the cases are in Northern Illinois. What’s your message to residents in downstate and Metro East where there are just a fraction of the cases and deaths?…
Well, you know, he mentioned Metro East. Actually there’s a hotspot in Metro east.
And that should remind you that nowhere in Illinois are people immune from COVID-19.
There are fewer cases it’s true, in some counties, but you heard me say at the beginning when there was only one county that had cases that this was likely to spread. We now have 96 counties with cases. What I would say to people who live in central and southern Illinois is, I’m taking into account the fact that there are fewer cases and fewer deaths in those areas. But we’re also looking at hospital availability and other factors to determine how we might think about changes that will be good for people who live in areas that don’t have as virulent a spread of COVID-19
* Today is the highest number of positive test results reported in one day. How do you explain the surge?…
Well, the most important thing that happened today that led to a lot higher positive test count is we tested more people. I think the testing number for today was 9300, and that’s the largest number yet, so that’s why you see a larger positive testing result.
* Are the early models predicting a peak in mid April wrong, and do you believe the public has a right to see the models you’re using to make these life altering decisions?…
So I think I’ve made clear but I’ll repeat that I’ve relied upon a variety of experts, you can reach them yourselves they’re the experts at Northwestern they’re well known in Northwestern U of C you have UIC. These are, [garbled] you know examples of folks who, some of whom have developed models.
And so, I look at all of the those and listen to those experts because I think one of the things that maybe isn’t widely understood as these models are they change literally every day. And the reason is because you’re projecting on one day, right, but about a bunch of days forward. And then as you move forward, you have actual numbers now to plug into the model. And guess what, that will be different than whatever you projected by its very nature.
So there’s nothing exact about these models and it’s really important for people to understand that, you know, I’m estimating. We all are. Even the modelers are estimating and the purpose for the estimating isn’t so much that we know exactly what date, some data, which you might peak, that’s not the purpose of the models.
The purpose of the models from my perspective is to understand what the capacity needs will be for us in our hospitals among our healthcare workers to treat people who might get COVID-19 on those dates where we might have a very high infection rate and a need for more hospital beds. So that I hope that gives a bigger picture of what we’re looking at.
But I think you should look at all of the online models, they’re worth looking at. We’ll be talking more about modeling tomorrow, to give you a better understanding of how we look at things.
* We’ve picked up a bunch of new commenters lately. All are welcome if they abide by the rules and they keep in mind that this isn’t Facebook.
However, some of the newbies are neglecting to pick screen names. I don’t care how thoughtful or interesting their comments are, I’m deleting all anonymous comments as soon as I see them because most are drive-by one-offs which add zero value.
But that process can take a bit. I have other stuff to do besides monitoring comments, after all.
So, I’m asking all other commenters to not respond to the anonymous goofs. If something is getting out of hand, please email me (click the contact button at the top right of the page) or text me if you have my number and I’ll try to get right on it. But in the meantime just completely ignore them because their shelf-life is brief. Life is too short to spend time arguing with the walking dead.
A county board chairman has raised concerns after he said the Illinois Department of Corrections failed to test 5 correctional officers who worked at Stateville Correctional Center, a state-run prison that has been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The prison has reported a growing number of coronavirus cases and the Illinois Department of Corrections had asked for officers from other prisons to fill in at Stateville. Fulton County Board Chairman Pat O’Brian said officers from Illinois River Correctional Center were told they would be tested after their rotation at Stateville and placed on 14-day paid quarantine. O’Brian said that is not happening.
“They were essentially releasing five individuals back into our communities that had been working at one of the largest COVID outbreaks in a prison in the state of Illinois,” O’Brian said. “We had to act on that.”
State Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, and State Rep. Mike Unes, R-East Peoria, have been in contact with the governor’s office regarding the issues.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker was asked about the issue on Tuesday at a news conference but declined to provide specifics.
I’ve read a few other articles about this. Here are a couple of them..
Not one of those reporters bothered to reach out to AFSCME Council 31 for its response. So I did.
* Here’s Anders Lindall…
Last month IDOC sought volunteers from other facilities to be temporarily detailed to Stateville in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak there. It’s our understanding that, without talking to the union, some management personnel promised that — upon the completion of three to five weeks of working 12-hour shifts, five days a week at Stateville — staff who volunteered to participate would remain in paid status during a 14-day self-quarantine period before returning to work at their usual facility. This promise was subsequently withdrawn.
AFSCME’s top priority is safety and making sure that the employees involved could be immediately tested for COVID-19 before returning to work. That would not only prevent the potential spread of coronavirus infection between facilities but ensure that anyone found to have contracted it could get needed medical attention while taking the COVID leave available to all state employees. The union pushed hard and made it happen.
The union has also filed a grievance over management’s withdrawal of the promised 14 days’ leave. These unnecessary complications and confusion could have been avoided if the department had simply agreed upon a procedure with AFSCME in advance and prevented some supervisors from dealing directly with individual employees.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 2,049 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 98 additional deaths.
Cook County: 1 female 30s, 1 male 30s, 3 males 40s, 2 females 50s, 3 males 50s, 5 females 60s, 6 males 60s, 7 females 70s, 8 males 70s, 1 unknown 70s, 5 females 80s, 16 males 80s, 8 females 90s, 3 males 90s
DuPage County: 1 female 70s, 1 female 80s, 2 male 80s, 2 females 90s
Jefferson County: 1 male 60s
Kane County: 2 males 50s, 1 female 70s, 1 male 80s
Kankakee County: 1 female 90s
Kendall County: 1 female 60s
Lake County: 1 male 60s, 1 male 90s
Macon County: 1 female 60s
Madison County: 2 males 70s, 1 male 80s
McHenry County: 1 female 70s, 1 male 80s
Monroe County: 1 male 80s
Rock Island County: 1 male 70s
St. Clair County: 1 male 80s
Will County: 1 male 50s, 1 male 60s, 1 male 70s, 1 female 80s, 1 male 90s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 35,108 cases, including 1,565 deaths, in 96 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years.
* The tricky math of lifting coronavirus lockdowns - Research groups are trying to calculate how much we can safely relax social distancing restrictions, but we’re still missing critical pieces of data.
* Is the City Itself the Problem? - There’s a long history of blaming urban areas rather than economic factors for physical and moral ills. But density can be an asset for fighting coronavirus
* Illinois Republican lawmakers urge Pritzker to open state parks and some businesses: Rep. Mark Batinick, a Plainfield Republican, recommended that senior citizens, one of the groups most vulnerable to COVID-19, continue to stay isolated, and that employees be required to wear face coverings inside stores and restaurants. Batinick said he has largely been satisfied with the Pritzker administration’s communication with lawmakers during the public health crisis, but that he wants to see new epidemiology charts over the next couple days.
* Decatur mayor on whether people will behave when restrictions are lifted: That’s what we’re risking. If we open up somewhat, having people take so much advantage of it that they overdo it, they overcorrect, and we have to go back to Ground Zero because as you said, we haven’t hit the peak here yet. We’re still nearly a month away from where we thought we’d be right now. I hope along with the governor that we’ve overprepared. That is my goal is that we are so over the top and overprepared and it doesn’t happen here in the way that it could. I think the governor does not want New York happening in Chicago. By doing everything and being in place, if it does come, we’ll be ready, and we can pray every day that it doesn’t.
* Why Experts Say It’s a Good Thing Illinois’ Peak in Coronavirus Cases Will Be Later Than Anticipated: “So the reason why we’re not quite at peak is actually really good news. And I know that’s hard to hear that, you know, we may need to stay in longer, we’re not going to be able to just go right back to normal, but moving that peak later is the sign. It’s the reason why if you or someone in your family needs to go to the hospital or gets sick with COVID and needs a ventilator, it’s available. And we want to make sure it continues to be available.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday he favors allowing states struggling with high public employee pension costs amid the burdens of the pandemic response to declare bankruptcy rather than giving them a federal bailout.
“I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route,” he said Wednesday in a response to a question on the syndicated Hugh Hewitt radio show. “It’s saved some cities, and there’s no good reason for it not to be available.”
Getting that through the Senate would be quite difficult, to say the least. Financial institutions which hold untold billions in public debt have a lot of clout in DC, and I can’t see them jumping up and down with glee at the possibility of those portfolios collapsing.
But getting that radical idea through the House would be next to impossible. McConnell is very good at public negotiating ploys. The media eats it up every time. But everyone needs to take a breath, even if President Trump chimes in.
His statements set up a conflict with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said on Bloomberg Television Wednesday a “major package” of aid for state and local government will be in the next stimulus legislation considered by Congress.
McConnell may also find himself in conflict with President Donald Trump. The president said Tuesday after meeting with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that states will need assistance. “And I think most Republicans agree too, and Democrats,” Trump said. “And that’s part of phase four.”
* But while McConnell did throw a lot of cold water on a state bailout package, saying he wanted to hit the pause button, he didn’t completely rule out all state aid today. Let’s go back to McConnell’s remarks…
“You raised yourself the important issue of what states have done, many of them have done it to themselves with their pension programs. There’s not going to be any desire on the Republican side to bail out state pensions by borrowing money from future generations,” McConnell said, after Hewitt floated Illinois, California and Connecticut as examples of states that have overly generous benefits for public employees.
“We’ll certainly insist that anything we’d borrow to send down to the states is not spent on solving problems that they created for themselves over the years with their pension program,” McConnell added.
To my eyes, that last bit looks like the real McConnell demand: No federal money for state pension funds. The Harmon letter did not help.
*** UPDATE *** From the governor’s office…
The Governor is working with our delegation and partners in Washington D.C. to ensure the state has the resources it needs to continue this fight against COVID-19. As the nation grapples with the impacts of this virus, every state is facing budget shortfalls and we need partners in Congress who will work with us on real solutions, instead of using this crisis to propose an ideological hail mary. The State of Illinois prioritizes its debt payments and is working to ensure we remain on firm fiscal footing through this crisis and we are working with partners who believe a federal response is needed to address unique challenges of this time.
Each year, Teachers’ Retirement System distributes approximately $7 billion in benefits to retired members and beneficiaries. Those benefits must be – and always have been – paid each month, no matter what the economic conditions may be.
TRS will continue to have sufficient funds to meet all benefit payments on time and in full for the foreseeable future despite the worldwide economic downturn created by the spread of the coronavirus.
The System’s defensive investment strategy enabled TRS to protect the bulk of member assets during recent market upheavals. On December 31, 2019, TRS assets stood at $54.24 billion. As of April 20, 2020, the investment portfolio was valued at $50.18 billion.
“The impact of the economy’s hard stop is being felt in every household, every business, every school and every government in the United States. TRS is not immune,” said TRS Executive Director Dick Ingram. “TRS was able to limit the economic damage from the coronavirus because our investment strategy emphasizes keeping risk at a minimum.”
A key element of the TRS investment program is to maintain a focus on steady, long-term investment returns. Short-term corrections in the investment markets get the headlines, but TRS recognizes that the majority of its members maintain relationships with the System that last for several decades.
For instance, the 40-year return for TRS at the end of 2019 was 9.1 percent. During the same period, the annualized return for the S&P 500 index was 8.4 percent.
In its 81-year history, TRS has survived numerous economy-shattering events, including World War II and the resulting reconstruction of Europe and Asia, wars in Korea and Vietnam, oil supply crises in 1973 and 1979; runaway inflation in the 1970s and 1980s; numerous stock market “corrections;” the Iranian invasion of Kuwait, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and five global health epidemics – SARS, Ebola, the Avian Flu, the Zika virus and the Swine Flu.
“Our long-term perspective and strategy serve our members well,” Ingram added.
To put this into some perspective, the Fiscal Year 2020 budget appropriated $4.8 billion to TRS. And $4 billion has vanished for now.
Wednesday, Apr 22, 2020 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
In Illinois, the five people who have the ultimate say in shaping our state legislative districts include House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President Don Harmon, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady, and Governor J.B. Pritzker. If state lawmakers don’t follow the lead of other states and pass the Fair Maps Amendment, our representation will be determined by career politicians and attorneys.
Or, we could follow a path that would lead to a more diverse group representing the people of Illinois. If we follow California’s lead and establish an independent commission, we could have our next remap led by people who have spent their lives educating high schoolers, running small businesses and doing community foundation work and urban planning. That was the result of California’s first independent, citizen-led commission. Which group would you trust to represent your community’s interests?
State lawmakers must take votes on HJRCA41/SJRCA18, the Fair Maps Amendment, by May 3rd or we will be left with the status quo.
* Even if the governor had the power to do this (and I don’t think he does and neither does his legal counsel), a governor should not use this emergency to fulfill a policy goal that has been rejected for decades by the Illinois General Assembly just because elements of his base want him to do it. Here’s Ariel Cheung at the Tribune…
The state’s eviction moratorium has not been enough to protect Illinois renters, housing advocates say. Chicago’s 2,000 one-time housing grants — which 83,000 people have applied for — did not quiet the calls for relief.
Lawmakers are rushing to pass legislation that would suspend rent and mortgage payments during the coronavirus pandemic, while also keeping landlords and lenders afloat. But next month’s rent is due in just over a week, leaving little time to help those who need it. […]
Advocates and a growing number of politicians have urged Gov. J.B. Pritzker to use his emergency powers through his ongoing disaster proclamation to repeal the state’s preemptive ban on rent regulation — action Pritzker has repeatedly said he cannot legally take. They are also pushing for the governor to put a moratorium on rent and mortgage payments for the duration of his stay-at-home order and three months after it is lifted.
They come armed with a legal opinion arguing that such action is within the governor’s powers during a declared disaster, either by issuing a statewide order or leaving it up to municipalities to decide.
…Adding… Set aside for a moment the highly questionable legality of the governor issuing an executive order to nullify a state law that prohibits rent control, and consider their other demand that he place a “moratorium on rent and mortgage payments” for the duration.
Leases and mortgages are legally binding contracts. So, the progressives pushing this idea need to stop and think what they’re doing. If they say he has the ability to nullify contracts, then what’s to stop him from temporarily nullifying or altering public and private employee union contracts? The CTU has been backing this ill-advised campaign. Careful what you wish for. Also, y’all might want to check the US Constitution’s contract clause.
Heck, taking it to an extreme, if the governor supposedly has this much power during an emergency, what’s to stop him from nullifying the legally binding contract portion of the state Constitution’s pension clause?
The COVID-19 public health crisis has our Country living through unprecedented times. Our State is under a stay- at-home order resulting in school closures, drastically altered restaurant operations, and banned gatherings of ten people or more. In the midst of this stay-at-home order, some services cannot stop and some workers must still report to the frontlines.
Nursing home workers are among those our state is depending on to show up and care for our loved ones. As elected officials – as Illinoisans – we owe them and their families a great deal of gratitude and deep appreciation. We are concerned to hear that there is not enough PPE being provided to workers in ALL job classifications in nursing homes. If we are going to flatten the curve of COVID-19, we have to provide the appropriate PPE, for workers and consumers to feel safe. Workers should be informed and trained on how to deal with COVID-19 in all facilities for their safety as well as the residents. Our collective goal is to save as many lives as possible and that can only be done when employers protect their employees.
In addition, these workers are among the lowest paid in the state. Last year the Illinois General Assembly took action to increase the reimbursement rates for nursing homes by $240 million. We supported this measure, in part because it was assured by the nursing home industry that a significant portion of this money would be spent on direct care staff – the very staff on the frontlines fighting back against COVID-19.
Unfortunately, we’ve learned that this hasn’t been the case as workers from over 100 nursing facilities are bargaining to finalize a contract before their current agreement expires at the end of this month. As some of the lawmakers who authorized this funding, we remain hopeful that the nursing home industry intends to offer their workers a contract that truly reflects the large increase in dollars that the industry was given. This also comes in light of news that the nursing home industry is asking for millions more in immediate state funding for purposes which are unclear. We are alarmed to learn of this request when the money previously authorized hasn’t yet been used for its intended purpose.
We urge the Illinois Association of Health Care Facilities to thoroughly consider their actions in this extremely trying time. Workers deserve respect and dignity. This starts with adequate personal protective equipment, a level of paid sick time that you would expect for yourself, and wages that don’t keep employees living in poverty.
If the COVID-19 public health pandemic has accomplished one thing it has uncovered the very real problem that frontline healthcare workers haven’t received the support, respect, and compensation they deserve to support themselves and their families. Please consider contributing to the solution. Now is the time to save lives – not pennies.
* Meanwhile, SEIU Healthcare has two new radio ads. First up, “She’s My Mom”…
Script…
My daughter cries every day when I go to work at a nursing home, not knowing if I’ll be safe.
I hear the cries of patients — crying because they’re getting sick, care workers are getting sick, and because nursing home owners refuse to help. Nursing-home workers — Black, brown, and white women — deserve a safe workplace and hazard pay for our work on the frontlines — we deserve to be able to protect our families and communities from getting sick. Because I’m not just a nursing-home worker —
I’m a Nursing home worker on the frontlines of this crisis. Other Black women, like me, are risking our lives everyday, working in unsafe workplaces, and not receiving hazard pay for our essential work. Across Illinois, residents in nursing homes are dying…. workers like me are dying.
We need nursing home owners to put our safety and our patients’ safety above their profits.
We are urging our lawmakers to get involved on behalf of our patients’ lives — and ours too.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday said models are now predicting the new coronavirus won’t peak in Illinois until mid-May, weeks later than previously projected. […]
“So it’s been pushed out now, according to the models, to maybe mid-May, but at a lower level, and so we’re moving, inching toward that date,” Pritzker said.
* The first question from Illinois reporters yesterday was about that changed forecast. Pritzker’s response…
We’ll be talking more about our models in the coming couple of days. But suffice to say that we’re working hard to try to make changes to the stay at home order. But, you know, we are in the stay at home order now, so I think I’ve given enough information to people so they understand that the peak is still yet to come. We need to be careful.
But I wanted to give our staff and myself enough time to have conversations with the epidemiologists and the experts and people in different industries to try to understand what we could do, not just in the very near term about changing the stay at home order in some ways, tweaking at the edges and trying to make it easier on people, but also what we will do going forward, if in fact the peak comes in mid-May or whenever that may come. We need to have 14 days after that, as you know, according to many of the experts, where the numbers are going down, so we’re looking at all of those things we’re working on it now.
I have a very real problem with the governor going on a national cable news program mere minutes after briefing Illinois reporters Monday and telling that audience about a very substantial change in his forecast, and then repeating that information to a national newspaper the following day, but then dismissing questions about this quite substantial revision from reporters who actually live in and cover his own state.
I get why the modeling changed. The curve was slowed. Illinoisans leveled off a sharp upward spike and that pushed things out by several weeks.
But he should’ve explained this yesterday. And he probably should’ve said who was doing this new modeling that he’s looking at. At least give us a thumbnail sketch and then provide lots more details at a later briefing devoted entirely to the topic.
We’re the ones he governs. We’re the ones whose very lives and livelihoods depend on the governor’s every decision. If he’s not willing to answer questions at home, then he shoudn’t go on national media and answer theirs.
– A coalition of business groups today filed a lawsuit challenging changes recently adopted by the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission that will require employers to pay workers’ compensation benefits if an employee is diagnosed with COVID-19 without proof the illness was contracted at the workplace.
The plaintiffs in the case are the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, which filed the suit on behalf of the state’s diverse employer community. Together, IMA and IRMA’s membership employ the largest number of workers in Illinois and contribute the highest share of the state’s Gross Domestic Product. The legal challenge was filed in Sangamon County Circuit Court by attorneys Scott Cruz, Thad Felton and Kevin Hormuth with the law firm Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C.
“To be clear, this case is not about the wisdom of the substantive new law expressed by the Commission. This case is about the Commission far exceeding its rulemaking authority. The substantive law of Illinois, and the wisdom of implementing it, is for the legislature, after proper discourse, and not the whim of the Commission,” said attorney Scott Cruz. “Essential businesses across Illinois are doing all they can to protect workers while also meeting unprecedented demand for food, medical supplies, protective equipment and other important services needed during this pandemic. At a time when many are waiting for relief from the federal and state government in an effort to make payroll and retain workers, they will now be forced to pay for additional medical and salary costs regardless of whether an employees’ illness was contracted outside of the workplace.”
For clarity’s sake, the new rules shift the onus of proof onto businesses. They can still rebut the claims.
Working on getting a copy of the lawsuit, but the biz groups say they believe they’ll get a hearing this week.
It shouldn’t shock anyone that the corporate community opposes a policy decision that helps workers. It’s what happens in Springfield and Washington D.C.
Only thing is, for the last several weeks, we as a community, state, nation and world have been fighting a scourge that has ground the economy nearly to a halt and likely forever changed our society and its people.
From the beginnings of the pandemic, our institutions have had one common thread holding communities together – our front line workers. Whether it is the health care workers and first responders trying to stay even or one step ahead of a lightning-fast disease, or the grocery store clerks, public employees and other essential support people, they have not blinked in trying to keep us safe and ready to begin a recovery.
We commend Gov. JB Pritzker and the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission for their foresight, compassion and good judgement in making sure those essential workers who contract COVID-19 are covered under Workers’ Compensation protections.
This is why we have Workers’ Compensation. Let’s defend the workers standing between us and chaos. We hope the business community interests that filed a lawsuit challenging the ability of sick workers to have speedy access to Workers’ Compensation rethink their position.
I briefly want to address concerns about long term care facilities not adhering to proper COVID-19 response protocols. Thus far facilities seemed to have been responsive to IDPH guidance and compliance with IDPH teams on the ground. Just like our other health care workers staff at these facilities, our frontline workers dedicating their days and nights to caring for seniors and doing all that they can to ensure a safe and healthy home for their residents. We as a state are deeply grateful for their service.
That said, we will not hesitate to hold any bad actors at the management level accountable. These private facilities are home to some of our most vulnerable Illinoisans, and we expect owners and managers responsible for their care to take every action at their disposal to keep them safe.
The governor’s remarks clearly struck a nerve.
* A reporter asked the governor this question yesterday…
How do you respond to concerns from nursing home groups that their facilities were not prioritized soon enough by the administration, including testing and PPE? They argue that this has led to even worse shortages of PPE and more positive cases and facilities as many cases went undiagnosed for limited access to testing
Who is it that made the, not the question, but made the statement about PPE not being real? I think it’s an association. […]
I don’t think it would be fair to say that we have not provided PPE to nursing homes or to the counties to provide to their nursing homes. But we certainly want to know when there are nursing homes where you believe there is not PPE being made available every day to the people in those nursing homes where there are COVID positive patients, you should let our IDPH know. Dr. Ezike and her staff are all over this and they want to make sure that every one of our seniors is protected.
* A little background. I received this email after Monday’s media briefing from Matt Hartman, the executive director of the Illinois Health Care Association…
Rich, there was a good deal of misinformation in the Governor’s presser today in regards to nursing homes and how the state has handled the impact of the COVID-19 crisis in regards to the sector. The statements regarding expansive testing in facilities, prioritization of the sector for PPE, and prior statements about additional funding for nursing homes flowing all mischaracterized the reality. The timelines they describe are inaccurate, as are the responses to the requests of the sector and how they have involved us.
Testing in broad strokes in nursing homes didn’t begin until this week, prior to that centers had to request tests on a case by case basis, and in spite of the increased threat the virus poses to our residents, they were frequently denied. Nursing homes were not included on the initial priority list for PPE, rather they were told to individually request of their local health departments to be included, by which point the initial supplies were depleted. No funding has gone to facilities for the wildly increased costs of PPE and staffing during the crisis, though increases have been discussed by HFS.
* So, I asked the administration for a response. It came in not long before yesterday’s daily press conference and I didn’t have enough time to put something together. From deputy comms director Jason Rubin…
Hey Rich,
If the Illinois Health Care Association has concerns about the Governor’s statements we recommend they reach out to us directly so we can clarify. We have provided Matt and his team with a multitude of channels through which we can share information, guidance, and concerns during this pandemic. In fact, Deputy Governor Sol Flores and her team have a call with Matt and his team later this afternoon, one of the many calls that now take place every week, and I know they’re looking forward to another productive conversation.
On the substance, I would strongly encourage the association give the Governor’s remarks another listen before claiming the Governor is mischaracterizing reality. On testing, the Governor clearly laid out the fact that we have been able to secure more testing supplies, like VTM and swabs, and are therefore now able to more aggressively deploy testing at our long term care facilities. In facilities with known cases, we will continue to operate under the assumption that residents showing symptoms have COVID-19 and should be isolated and treated accordingly, but we will more aggressively test staff to understand who can safely continue working and who should isolate. In facilities without cases, we will test both residents and staff to isolate cases before widespread transmission. The Governor made clear in his remarks that we tested our first two homes over the weekend and an additional ten facilities yesterday. I’m not sure what was unclear about that timeline for Matt, but I’m sure the Deputy Governor and her team can help clear up any confusion this afternoon.
On PPE, everyone has to request PPE from their local health departments and county emergency management agencies. Those requests are all filled at the local level and when local stockpiles are depleted, county emergency management agencies make requests for additional PPE from IEMA. The state has made clear to local health departments that long term care facilities should be made a priority along with health care workers and first responders, who engage in this same process. If the association is suggesting long term care facilities be provided with a separate process than hospital workers and first responders, they are welcome to raise that on the call this afternoon.
On funding, as Matt Knows, Nursing Homes received initial funding from the CARES Act and will likely receive additional funding as soon as the federal government issues guidance. In the meantime, the state has provided a rate increase for nursing homes providing COVID-19 positive only care and we have streamlined the process for eligibility and admissions approvals to bring additional funding into all nursing homes at this time. This is in addition to the $240 million increase in funding the industry received less than a year ago, which represented a 10% rate increase.
Long term care facilities care for some of our most vulnerable residents. As the governor said, we are deeply grateful to the staff at these facilities who are on the frontlines, dedicating their days and nights to keeping our seniors safe. We look forward to continued dialogue with the Illinois Health Care Association as to how best we can all support that critical work.
We revised Illinois’ outlook to negative because it aligns with Moody’s view of the probable effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which will reduce tax collections and likely cause current-year pension investment losses, both of which would weigh more heavily on Illinois, given its existing weaknesses relative to other states. Federal government support will mitigate some of the direct budgetary burden, but the state will face liquidity pressure that may lead it to near-term actions such as adding to its balance of unpaid bills. The state is also increasingly likely to take actions that worsen its long-term liabilities, in view of revenue shortfalls and growing health and social burdens.
How Illinois’ fares now will depend on not only the track of the epidemic but how much financial relief it gets from the federal government, something that certainly was on the mind of Illinois Senate President Don Harmon with that controversial letter a few days ago, in which he pleaded for a bailout.
Another is whether voters in November approve Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposal to authorize a graduated income tax.
“Voter approval, which is far from assured, would add some revenue volatility but would greatly improve flexibility to respond to pension contribution and other spending needs as well as shifting economic conditions,” the agency wrote in a comment Pritzker surely noticed. “Rejection of the amendment probably will force the state to consider other alternatives, such as aggressive spending reductions, an increase in the existing flat income tax rate or application of the state sales taxes to services.”
Overall, it concludes, the state generally should fare about as well as other large-economy states in the recession that’s now underway. And liquidity is good—at the moment.
* I read the initial press release and asked a Moody’s spokesperson if the firm had any evidence that Illinois would skip bond payments. The emailed reply…
The short answer is “no.”
* So, I said, if there’s no evidence of that happening, why put Illinois a hair above junk status? The reply…
Well, that goes back to our rating scale. I can talk you through it at some point if you want but there’s 21 total ratings with about half considered “investment grade” (Aaa to Baa3) and the rest below (Ba1 and lower). We call the latter “speculative grade” but everyone else calls it “junk.”
At the end of the day, the ratings translate to bondholders how risky a bond is and what the chances are they’ll be fully repaid with interest. The higher the rating, the greater the likelihood and vice versa. Since there’s multiple levels of speculative grade ratings, the lower the rating the higher the chance of default (and the higher the risk to bondholders).
We rate about 8500 municipal issuers across the country and I’d be surprised if we had 400 ratings below investment grade. Municipal issuers are extremely resilient and defaults and bankruptcies are very rare. But if a rating is downgraded below investment grade that does not automatically translate to default. It means we think the chances are higher than before.
Remember Chicago is rated Ba1, the highest “junk” bond level and one below the state. But Chicago has been at that position for a few years now and has not defaulted. CPS is rated three notches lower than the city at B1 because we consider them a much higher risk than the city. But at its nadir a couple of years ago CPS was rated two notches lower at B3 and may have defaulted if the state had not assisted.
This might be too wonky already, but in speculative grade the ratings also translate into likely recovery rates for bondholders if there is a default. The lower the rating the lower the recovery expected. Puerto Rico’s debt is rated either Ca (35-65% recovery expected) or C (35% or less) and Puerto Rico has defaulted on almost all its debt.
One last item to note: Our records go back to 1970 and we’ve never had a state rated below investment grade. The median state rating is Aa1, our second highest and eight notches higher than Illinois.
Thanks for reading and hope that clears things up,
The onetime head of Fitch Ratings’ Public Finance Group is blasting the firm’s decision [last week] to immediately downgrade Illinois debt, calling it “premature,” instead of giving officials a chance to resolve financial woes amid a fast-moving COVID-19 pandemic.
Mike Belsky said the pandemic still has too many uncertainties to make a judgement on its fiscal impact here. Belsky is now executive director of the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. […]
Belsky said Fitch apparently did not follow its normal course of sitting down with management—in this case, state financial officials—to discuss what sort of response they might make to souring finances. “Management now is stretched, drinking from a fire hose” and properly focused on medical issues, he said. “There’s no doubt that Illinois is going to be challenged.”
U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, a Clinton appointee, [yesterday] discussed the substantial relief she intends to order for minor party and independent candidates for the Illinois 2020 election. The Libertarian and Green Presidential Candidates will be on the ballot in Illinois, as will all “minor” party candidates who were on the ballot in 2016 or 2018. Unfortunately there were no Libertarians on the ballot in 2016 or 2018 for legislative seats in Illinois. The Libertarian candidate for Senate will also be on the ballot.
Judge Pallmeyer also offered relief to the Libertarians who are running for congress in 2020. They will only need 10% of their original signature requirement, and the petition deadline is extended from June 12th to August 7th. Signatures can be obtained via a computer and an electronic signature, though a paper version of the signature must be printed and brought to election officials.
The judge’s order is currently being drafted.
“This legal victory is the first of many for the Libertarian Party as we fight for fair access to the ballot in an era when traditional petitioning is impossible and a threat to public health. We think Judge Pallmeyer’s precedent will be a beacon for other justices as they hear the other Libertarian Party cases,” said Libertarian Party Executive Director Daniel Fishman
The judge also dictated candidates may collect signatures remotely. Voters would be able to print out a petition from the candidate’s website, sign it and either send a hard copy to the candidate through the mail or electronically in an emailed attachment or as a photograph.
Alternatively, voters would be able to electronically sign petition forms from their smartphone or laptop’s trackpad. […]
The parties asked Illinois’ signature collection mandates be waived or suspended this general election cycle so their candidates could appear on the November ballot. In a remote court hearing Friday, Pallmeyer said that “is beyond the power of the court.”
“In other words, no test that I adopt is going to be, if you file a lawsuit, you get on the ballot. That’s not appropriate,” she said, according to a court transcription.
As I understand the order, it will be that if, for example, the Green Party qualified to have a candidate on the ballot in the Fifth Congressional district in one of the last two elections, so they would be — they would meet this qualification to nominate a candidate in the Green Party candidate without any signatures, but the fact that they nominated any Congressional candidate doesn’t mean that they can do that in every district where they didn’t have candidates.
Judge Pallmeyer said that interpretation was correct.
And it also means the two parties can nominate US Senate candidates and put them on the ballot without circulating petitions.
As of today, nearly 140,000 more student loan borrowers in Illinois will now get relief. IDFPR has worked tirelessly to secure loan relief options with 20 student loan servicers, allowing borrowers to request a 90 day forbearance, waived late fees, no negative credit reporting, the pause of debt collection lawsuits for 90 days and enrollment in other borrower assistance programs.
* And…
I’m so proud today to share another critical update from another of our agencies and that’s the Department of Human Services. Illinois requested an expansion of benefits to help put additional food on the table for all Illinois SNAP households with school aged children, more than 300,000 in all, and that expansion has now been approved, delivering an additional $112 million in food assistance to children across the state. … This increased assistance will be automatically added to family link cards.
As always, please pardon transcription errors.
* Dr. Ezike…
As of last night, 4776 individuals in Illinois were hospitalized with COVID-19. Of those, 1226 patients are in the ICU and 781 patients were on ventilators. 30% of hospital ICU beds across the state are open and available. Should anyone need intensive care of the ICU beds that are currently in use, 55% of all of them are being used by patients with COVID-19.
It’s also important to note that 60% of all the ventilators in the state are available for use, just over half of the ventilators that are currently being used are being used by patients with COVID-19. […]
As we continue to survey individuals with COVID-19, we have found that 54% of the cases reported to public health less than two weeks ago,report no longer having symptoms and being recovered. For those who reported a positive test four weeks ago, 77% of those reported being recovered.
This is encouraging news and I hope it will strengthen our resolve to continue the very tough sacrifices that we continue to make.
* On to questions for the governor. He was asked about the new modeling showing that the peak may occur in mid-May. He said he will be explaining that in more details in the next couple of days. “So say we don’t hit that peak until mid May… Do we have to be in a, in your belief, do we have to be in a stay at home order until we hit that peak? [Because he’d lift it earlier than the peak? I don’t get it.]…
Well, again, we will be making some changes to the stay at home order as it is. But it is true that it is working. And so to pull it off, he stay at home order, it seems to me you know to remove it, as I see some other governors may want to do, to remove it entirely is to simply open everything back up to infection. We heard Dr. Ezike saying in the last couple of days that the R0, the number of people that are getting infected by a single person who is infected has gone down significantly since we put the stay at home order in place. That will go right back up again if you remove all the restrictions.
* He was asked about the cost of keeping up the McCormick Place facility and said much would be handled by the federal government…
The consequence of being underprepared would be the loss of life and the consequence of being over prepared would be that we built out more than we may have needed and nobody can know exactly where we’ll end up until much after we’ve hit the peak and moved off of it.
* The New York Times has a front page story today reporting could take years before New York City completely recovers from the pandemic, in particular theater, restaurants, tourism related industry. Are we going to see that in Chicago as well?…
Well I don’t know and I don’t think anybody really knows, but I certainly have said to you that I think if we can get a treatment and a vaccine, ultimately that the damage that is suggested by an article like that wouldn’t be visited as dangerously or as difficult on the economies of our state. So I can’t really answer it and we can see what’s happened to the economy already. In this short period of time I’m hoping that we’ll be able to recover, much more quickly.
* We have a number of concerts that were set to take place in the month of May. Is it safe to say that they’re canceled?…
I think I just did read actually that a number of them were canceled in Chicago. So I think that probably answers the question.
* Even as you begin to reopen businesses on May 1, are there enough hand sanitizers, cleansers for a lot of these businesses especially small mom and pop places? You know, large companies can get their hands on enough hand sanitizers and cleanser. Is there enough of that type of material to be able to help businesses reopen?…
Yeah, so I want to caution that there isn’t, I don’t think there’s going to be some mass opening of lots and lots and lots of businesses on May 1.
But to the point, do we have enough hand sanitizer or dispensers? I don’t think anybody has been fully prepared for this and even each industry, and I’ve asked industry CEOs to look at how would you reopen, how would it work.
There’s no doubt that hand sanitizer and the use of PPE is going to be an important part of that. Will businesses provide PPE? That’s a question, will hand sanitizer be available to everybody that walks in the door, you know, should it be required. I agree that right now I don’t think anybody would say that there’s enough of that going on. We’re also going to have to develop some norms that people just understand that as you’re walking into a place you know getting hand sanitizer and making sure that you’ve used it, or making sure your mask is on as you enter someplace. I think those are all things that people are going to have to get used to and businesses are going to have to adjust to to make sure that their customers are protected.
* Last question from me. A lot of people have been asking about this and other states are starting to open, obviously other states are in different, you know, phases when it comes to this. Golf courses. People are so anxious just to get out on the green to be outside. Golf courses. Maybe you could do it in a socially distant kind of way. Is there, is there any talk about opening up those type of sectors when we go into that, does that all kind of come into your decision making?…
Yeah, we’re looking at lots of things. We understand summer is different than what we’ve had up to now, which has been colder weather. So we want to consider all of those things. That’s just one of the many, many things that we’ve tried to take into consideration.
But I do want to remind everybody that once again, we have bent the curve, because we have had a stay at home order. And so the fact of a stay at home order in general, being a very positive thing before we ever have enough testing, because there isn’t enough testing and there won’t be for some time to really open everything up. And the fact [is] that we’re going to need a whole lot more.
* We see Senate President Harmon has asked for financial aid from Congress, to what extent are you asking for financial help lobbying Congress members talking on the phone, how many people are assigned to these tasks?…
I don’t think there’s anything that can be more effective than a governor calling… talking to them about reaching out to their delegations. A Governor does have the ear of members of their delegation. And so I’ve made many many calls like that, on behalf of our common interests in all the 50 states to get the federal government to help us with support for our states and for the industries in our states and so on. I do that quite often and a number of members of my staff have also been on the phone with staff members of those various representatives and senators across the nation.
* How much has the state spent on former vibra Hospital in Springfield?…
I can’t do that for you right here at the podium I don’t have it in front of me. But at this moment there’s been no work done on Bibra so at least that part of any expenditure has not been undertaken.
* For Dr. Ezike: How worried are you for a second wave of COVID-19 this fall?…
I think we should be concerned. Obviously, we’re following information and data that’s coming from all around the world. We know that the Fall is already traditionally an established time for flu outbreaks. So, the flu is is our epidemic that we see on a scheduled basis. so if there was supposed to be any resurgence, we could see why that would be at that time and so if you had COVID, as well as flu. It’s very concerning that there could be a significant second wave or a second surge and so that’s why without treatment without a vaccine for COVID, those two overlaid could be very, very problematic.
* If masks are required in cities like Chicago, how will your administration ensure everyone particularly low income people have access to face coverings and can go into public?…
It was pointed out to me yesterday by one of the elected officials I was talking to that I really should stop using the word mask and I should start using the word face covering.
Because the truth is that you don’t need to have an official mask. That’s not what everybody is suggesting, what doctors are saying. You do need to cover your nose and mouth with a, can be a T shirt. I saw a video of how you can prepare a T shirt for yourself as a mask and there are lots of different things fabric masks that you can create for yourself there. […]
And for people who cannot afford them I agree with you that I would like very much to make face coverings more available. I think that would probably be more in the disposable types. And so we’re looking at that and how we would do that, again industry by industry, and then for people who just want to go outside. I’d like to make it more available so we’ll be thinking and talking about that.
* We were told by the Fulton County Board Chair the five correctional officers from the Illinois River Correctional Center in Canton, were promised a 14 day paid quarantine plus a COVID-19 test after volunteering to work at state Correctional Center. Can the governor confirm this and tell us what conversations he’s had with DOC about this matter?…
That is a subject of labor negotiation so that’s, that’s an ongoing conversation.
* Rock River Times: What would you say to people who feel the shutdown is a punishment, driven largely by the COVID situation in Chicago, one that has no chance of affecting them when they are many many miles from the city?…
Punishment. That is awkward to use.
We are in a global pandemic. When this broke out, nobody, nobody knew how fast this would travel. Nobody knew who was most susceptible to it. Nobody knew how to counter its effects. And much of that information, although we’ve discovered, some is still unknown to experts. And so, in, you know, all due caution to protect all of the people of the state of Illinois we put orders in place that would keep people healthy and safe and, and hopefully prevent people from getting COVID-19 who otherwise might.
So, you know, in terms of the different effects in different parts of the state, you’re, you know it’s correct to, to say that in more rural areas there have been fewer cases. The interesting thing to look at and I there are places you can go online to look at this to the, you know what, number of days. the doubling time is for different counties, you can find that online, and you’ll find different areas of the state, even though they have smaller populations have a higher doubling time than some very urban areas of the state.
So there’s no punishment involved. The goal here is to do the right thing for everybody. And it’s true that in some areas of the state there’s been a lower infection rate, and a lower doubling time. And so, that needs to be taken into consideration as we make changes.
* How do you respond to concerns from nursing home groups that their facilities were not prioritized soon enough by the administration including testing and PPE? They argue that this has led to even worse shortages of PPE and more positive cases and facilities as many cases went undiagnosed for limited access to testing…
Who is it that made the, not the question, but made the statement about PPE not being real? I think it’s an association. So I would just say this, that we have been from very early on and I spoke about this yesterday I hope you’ll go back and look at it because I’m not sure I can repeat it all for you right now but we’re from very early on I mean we started talking about and dealing with the problem in nursing homes in early March. This is before we ever had a disaster proclamation in the state, and long before we ever had a stay at home order. We shut down visitation at nursing homes and begin to do wellness checks of the personnel there. And then, as you know, more was known about how outbreaks in nursing homes occur. We made sure that everybody understood not just that there’s PPE available and by the way your local county Department of Public Health is provided with all of the PPE that they asked for from the state. That’s why we’ve been out acquiring PPE, they provide it to the local nursing home, and then we’ve been training nursing home personnel about how to put on that PPE, where that PPE properly and making sure that you know all precautions are taken to separate out people who are COVID positive from those who are not, and doing testing, and we’re doing even more testing now so there’s quite a lot being done. I don’t think it would be fair to say that we have not provided PPE to nursing homes or to the counties to provide to their nursing homes. But we certainly want to know when there are nursing homes where you believe there is not PPE being made available every day to the people in those nursing homes where there are COVID positive patients, you should let our IDPH know. Dr. Ezike and her staff are all over this and they want to make sure that every one of our seniors is protected.
We’ll have more on this soon.
* Have antibody test been made available to medical practitioners? What are healthcare workers advise to do if they test positive for COVID-19, or if the COVID-19 antibodies is it safe for them to continue practicing medicine?…
So a couple things I want to make sure you understand. The antibody tests are as yet a bit unproven, or at least some are and some are more effective, some are less. It is not widely used by states, or really anywhere, there is a body of researchers who are using antibody tests right now to determine whether people who have the antibodies in fact are immune. So it’s that is not even a proven fact yet. So that’s why we’re not providing antibody tests widely, we don’t provide that right now.
What we want to know is, where are there outbreaks? Where are people getting COVID-19? And then we want to make sure to contact trace all the people that are associated with all those who are tested positive, so that we can keep this from spreading and get that number of people who get infected by a single infected person down.
* Governors in Georgia, Tennessee South Carolina will let most businesses reopen May 1, even as COVID case loads and deaths rise. Have you ruled that out here and would you consider limiting travel to Illinois from the States?…
I have ruled out what they’re doing in Georgia and I’m not sure about all the other states but if they’re all doing the same thing which is essentially opening everything up. Yes, I have ruled that out for the time being. Because, as I have said time and time again, in order for us to truly open things up we need tracing, we need testing we need a treatment available and we need a widespread availability of PPE. And we don’t have those things available to us today. And the treatment of course is something that’s not in our control.
We are working on all the other three of those things to make sure that we are ready. But remember, Illinois is not even close to its peak, I mean we’re weeks away now. And you won’t really know you hit your peak until you’re on the other side of it, and are going down.
* Can you comment on how Illinois is going to close this projected budget deficits, what tools are you considering such as bonds for pension payments, do you expect service cuts or layoffs to state employees…
Well some of that I hope will get answered by the federal government. The Congress is considering a package, as I understand, that would provide more aid to the states and local governments and that will have a big impact on our decision making with regard to our budget.
But of course everything is on the table for consideration in the sense that I’m discussing with members of the House and the Senate how they want to proceed and what ideas we have and they have. This is an all hands on deck challenge, the state of our budget for the state of Illinois and so we’re looking at everything.
* Center Square: How long do you feel comfortable governing by executive order without checks on your authority from the legislature, or any potential legal action in the judicial branch?…
I don’t feel comfortable at all. … We’re in a worldwide pandemic we’re in an emergency situation we’re under disaster proclamation because people are dying and people are getting sick. And so as soon as we can get on the other side of this challenge.
Listen, I want regular order. There’s so many things that you’ve heard me talk about, the things that I want to accomplish for the people of the state of Illinois and those can’t be accomplished in the context of a pandemic.
* Why release convicted killers?…
I think some of you may know and understand that, because I’ve said it many times from this podium, that I want to keep the risk to people across the state of Illinois as low as possible. The risk of catching COVID-19, and the risk that might occur from somebody who has done something wrong in their past.
And so every time I consider a situation of somebody who’s asking for a pardon or commutation of their sentence, I’m taking into account how to make sure that we’re keeping the risk extraordinarily low.
For example, I have granted commutations to people who have been diagnosed with stage four cancer and are likely to die in three months. Hence, and they’re there. They’re confined to a bed. They can’t move around very much. And in the last three months of their life. It seemed to me that it would not be inappropriate for me to let them be with their family.
Again, you know they’re they’re suffering. And it’s also an alleviation of burden upon our prison system. So, you know, I think this is, it’s the right and the constitutional privilege granted to a governor to consider pardons and commutations. And in the context of a pandemic, in the context of what we’re going through now with COVID-19, trying to make sure that we keep our prison officials our officers who are working in the prisons and the people who are in prison who, some of them, are non violent criminals who were going to be led out in the next year anyway. To make sure that we’re making space in those prisons and keeping everybody safe as possible. Those are all some considerations that I give to pardons and commutations in this moment.
Hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans have filed record-setting claims for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of them is a struggling single mom who told us Tuesday night that she is out of cash – but the state is putting her money on hold for months.
As CBS 2 Political Investigator Dana Kozlov reported, Marissa Strickland said she has to wait almost five months to see any money at all – a wait that could leave her out of a home – all because of an issue she had two years ago and thought she had rectified.
It turns out the pandemic is not going to change that.
The governor was asked about this last week during a press conference and he said they’d check into it.
CBS 2 Political Investigator Dana Kozlov had new information Monday about the penalty weeks that have been issued because of previous unemployment claims, which are costing some people their benefits – big time.
“Trying to do little odd jobs to take care of my family – best as I can,” said Anthony Gordon.
Gordon’s anxiety is running high as his money runs low. Almost a month after being laid off from his Ford job at the plant near 126th Street and Torrence Avenue, he is being told he cannot get any unemployment benefits until his penalty weeks are over. The weeks were slapped onto his account after he got $1,700 more than he should have.
“But I already had paid that money back already, so I’m trying to figure out what was going on, and all I’m getting is they’re saying I have a penalty, so I don’t know what to do,” Gordon said.
* I asked the governor’s office about these stories and they sent me what IDES sent the station…
Individuals who commit unemployment fraud and defraud the unemployment system are required by law to repay the benefits they received, pay a penalty fee, and serve penalty weeks. This is a statutory requirement that IDES is mandated by Illinois state and federal law to implement.
Claimants who have stolen someone else’s identity to receive benefits will receive a determination that they have committed unemployment fraud. Claimants who have been working while certifying that they have not been working in order to continue receiving unemployment benefits will also receive a determination that they have committed unemployment fraud. To be clear, claimants certify every two weeks, legally telling the department that for the two weeks prior they have not been working or receiving wages. A claimant who has developed a pattern of legally certifying that they have not been working or receiving wages when, in fact, they have been, will receive a determination of unemployment fraud. If the claimant appeals the determination, they will participate in a hearing with an Administrative Law Judge. If, at this hearing, the determination of unemployment fraud is upheld, the claimant will receive the total number of penalty weeks they must serve, in addition to paying back the benefits they received and paying a penalty fee.
If a claimant wishes to appeal the Administrative Law Judge determination, there is an internal review process, and the final decision can be appealed in the circuit court.
The General Assembly would have to make a statutory change to defer serving penalty weeks during this crisis. At this time, IDES is unaware of any legislative proposal from the General Assembly to defer penalty weeks for those who have committed fraud. We would recommend reaching out to the General Assembly.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,551 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 119 additional deaths.
Boone County: 1 male 20s, 1 female 60s, 1 female 70s
Carroll County: 1 female 80s
Cook County: 1 female 30s, 1 female 40s, 2 males 40s, 2 females 50s, 9 males 50s, 4 females 60s, 10 males 60s, 1 unknown 60s, 9 females 70s, 14 males 70s, 5 females 80s, 17 males 80s, 8 females 90s, 5 males 90s
DuPage County: 1 female 40s, 1 male 60s, 1 female 70s, 1 male 70s, 1 female 80s, 3 males 90s
Jackson County: 1 male 80s
Kankakee County: 1 female 90s
Lake County: 1 female 60s, 1 male 70s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s, 1 male 90s
Madison County: 1male 70s, 1 male 80s
McHenry County: 1 male 70s, 2 females 90s, 1 male 90s
Rock Island County: 1 female 70s
Will County: 1 female 50s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
Winnebago County: 1 male 60s
Woodford County: 1 female 70s
Hardin County is now reporting a case. Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 33,059 cases, including 1,468 deaths, in 96 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years.
* The governor also said this yesterday while appearing on CNBC and I told subscribers about it this morning. Here’s the Tribune…
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday said models are now predicting the new coronavirus won’t peak in Illinois until mid-May, weeks later than previously projected. […]
“So it’s been pushed out now, according to the models, to maybe mid-May, but at a lower level, and so we’re moving, inching toward that date,” Pritzker said. “People are doing what they need to do in the state of Illinois, staying indoors or staying at home, wearing masks outside as I’ve urged everybody to do, making sure they’re washing their hands and all the other things that we’ve asked people to do.”
In the same interview, Pritzker again said he he is looking at regional differences across Illinois’ 102 counties as he weights adjustments to the state’s stay-at-home order.
“We put in stay-at-home orders that were really across -the-board very effective, and now we’ve looked at what the infection rate has been—different in Cook County than it is in our collar counties, and different in our Cook and collar counties that it is in other counties across the state,” Pritzker said. “And now I think we can make some adjustments based upon hospitalization rates, based upon ICU bed availability, based upon infection rates.”
The Illinois High School Association’s board of directors has announced the cancellation of the spring sports season. […]
“We support the decision by Governor Pritzker and the Illinois State Board of Education, and given the logistics, we simply felt we could not conduct state tournaments that meet the expectations of our member schools this spring, ” IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said. “As disappointing as it may be for students, it is the right decision for their health and safety, as well as for the health and safety of the general public, as we cope with this unprecedented pandemic.”
Illinois’ R0, or R naught, value is decreasing, but hasn’t yet fallen enough yet to let up on the state’s stay-at-home order, Ezike said. The R0 value is the reproductive ratio of a virus.
If the average R0 value in a population is greater than 1, the infection will spread exponentially. If the R0 is less than 1, the infection will spread more slowly and eventually die out. The higher the R0 value in a given population, the faster a virus will spread.
R0 is affected by a population’s size and proportion of people susceptible to the virus in a given population, the infectiousness of a virus and the rate of disappearance of cases — either by recovery or death. The length of time an infected person is contagious also plays a role in a population’s R0 value.
At the beginning of Covid-19’s spread in Illinois, which Ezike characterized Sunday as the “exponential growth phase,” Illinois’ R0 value might have been 3.5,” she said. But the figure is now closer to 1, she said.
“If one person can infect three [people], and then each of those people infect three additional [people], and then those people all go on to [infect more people], within 10 rounds you get to 60,000 people,” Ezike said. “And so, obviously we brought that way down — we think our R naught is low in the ones — and so the transmission has slowed tremendously, but of course, it’s not enough to have completely made sure that it died out.”
Pritzker added that epidemiologists are looking for a R0 value below 1.
* Illinois Senate Republicans, including Schimpf, question Pritzker on prison sentence commutations: The Illinois Constitution states, “The Governor may grant reprieves, commutations and pardons, after conviction, for all offenses on such terms as he thinks proper. The manner of applying therefore may be regulated by law.” Pritzker pointed out Saturday that all cases also go through the Prisoner Review Board process.
For more than six years, we’ve called for reform of Illinois’ public pension system. Some days we begged legislators, some days we harangued them.
Today we’re pleased to list the names of House lawmakers who took responsible action Thursday and voted “yes” on Speaker Michael Madigan’s pension overhaul.
Madigan acknowledged during debate that his bill is not salvation: It won’t solve the state’s financial problems — the unpaid bills, the (surely understated) pension system liabilities, the imminent budget pressures — but it hurtles the ball forward. That is worth celebrating.
Sixty-two House members voted for reform. By pushing the green button, they acknowledged that the status quo is harming our state, hurting taxpayers, discouraging potential employers and denying services to the truly vulnerable.
For the General Assembly, State Employees, State Universities, and Downstate Teacher retirement systems, limits the salary of a Tier I member for benefit and contribution purposes to the greater of (i) the annual contribution and benefit base established for the applicable year by the Commissioner of Social Security under the federal Social Security Act or (ii) the annual salary of the member during the 365 days immediately preceding that effective date
For the General Assembly, State Employees, State Universities, and Downstate Teacher retirement systems, provides that, for a Tier I retiree, (i) the amount of each automatic annual increase in retirement annuity occurring on or after the effective date of this amendatory Act shall be the lesser of $750 ($600 if the annuity is based primarily upon service as a covered employee) or 3% of the total annuity payable at the time of the increase, including previous increases granted, and (ii) the monthly retirement annuity shall first be subject to annual increases on the January 1 occurring on or next after the attainment of age 67 or the January 1 occurring on or next after the fifth anniversary of the annuity start date, whichever occurs earlier.
Amends the General Assembly, State Employee, State Universities, and Downstate Teacher Articles of the Illinois Pension Code. Increases the retirement age by various amounts for certain Tier I members and participants, based on the person’s age on the effective date.
* On March 24, 2010, the Illinois House passed Senate Bill 1946, which created the Tier 2 system. The bill passed 92-17. Rep. Mike Bost was one of 7 “Present” votes.
* In December of 2015, Congressman Mike Bost began receiving his state legislative pension of $73,017.60, which increases at a compounded 3 percent rate every year.
Illinois must reform its pension system to reduce long-term liabilities and make the system more equitable to the people of Illinois before federal money is used to support the pension system.
* Premier Broadcasting in Effingham has published a Facebook post by a local health care worker who was infected with COVID-19. Click here and read the whole thing. You do not want to go through what Morgan has experienced. Be safe.
After weeks of speculation over the fate of some of Chicago’s biggest summer festivals, the official word arrived Tuesday morning.
Out of an abundance of caution and adhering to state-mandated stay-at-home guidelines and social distancing guidelines from the CDC, the following events have been canceled according to the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE):
• 4th annual Chicago House Music Conference & Festival, May 21–24, various venues
• Chicago’s Memorial Day Parade and Wreath Laying Ceremony, May 23
• 35th Chicago Gospel Music Festival, May 27–30 in Millennium Park and the Chicago Cultural Center
• 37th annual Chicago Blues Festival, June 5-7 in Millennium Park
…The cancellations reflect only specific DCASE-run festivals through early June, and according to the official announcement, “is not official City guidance for other event producers; they should continue to follow the public health guidance of the CDC, City and State officials.”
* And even if late-summer events happen, large crowds may not show up. From one of those polls we discussed earlier…
Two-thirds of Americans (67 percent), including 66 percent of independents and 64 percent of Republicans, say they will continue to practice social distancing even after official restrictions are lifted; just 13 percent of Americans say they will not.
* The governor was asked yesterday how much testing needs to be done to reopen the economy. This was part of his answer…
Look, there’s not an exact number, but I would tell you this, that you need a lot more testing than we have today.
And the reason I say it that way, I’m saying not an exact number because you can debate this question. I would argue that as we start to think about it, remember you need a lot of other preconditions even according to the White House model of how to move into phase one of what they’re calling reopening. You have to get past the peak, you know, you have to have 14 days of numbers going down, right, all those conditions.
But on the testing front, I would ask you this question: What would make you feel comfortable going back into your place of work, how much testing [of] other people work with you, near you? How much, what would you need to feel comfortable as you go to work every day knowing that everybody in your workplace goes home, and they go to, the grocery store and they go to wherever it is they go visit their grandmother and so on and then they come back to work the next day?
* The Question: What’s your answer to the governor’s question?
Tuesday, Apr 21, 2020 - Posted by Advertising Department
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Earlier today, Vice President Pence spoke with governors from all 50 states about our unified effort to defeat the virus. He had a great call. It was a great call, very positive in I’d say every way. Prior to the call, we provided each governor with a list of the names, addresses and phone numbers of the labs where they can find additional testing capacity within their states. Many, many labs. We’re providing you with the list. We’ll show it to you now if you need it. We’ll give you the details, but hundreds and hundreds of labs are ready, willing, and able. Some of the governors, like as an example, the governor from Maryland didn’t really understand the list. He didn’t understand too much about what was going on. So now I think he’ll be able to do that. It’s pretty simple, but they have tremendous capacity and we hope to be able to help him out. We’ll work with them and work with all of the governors.
Similar to the situation with ventilators, states need to assess their complete inventory of available capacity. Some states have far more capacity than they actually understand, and it is a complex subject, but some of the governors didn’t understand it. The governor, as an example Pritzker from Illinois, did not understand his capacity, not simply ask the federal government to provide unlimited support. I mean you have to take the support where you have it, but we are there to stand with the governors and to help the governors, and that’s what we’re doing and they have a tremendous capacity that we’ve already built up and you’ll be seeing that. We’re going to be introducing a couple of the folks in a little while to talk about it.
* I asked the governor’s office about this and was referred to Pritzker’s remarks yesterday at his own media briefing…
The main focus of that call was about testing. The White House is reiterating … the Coronavirus Task Force is reiterating that states have testing capacity. And I’ve said this before, but you know testing capacity is a function of how many machines do you have and if you ran them 24/7, what output could you get.
The problem is there’s a big difference between testing capacity and getting testing result and what’s the big difference in all those things in between that you need, like swabs, and viral transport medium and RNA extractor reagent. And then you’ve got to run those machines with lab techs, and if you’re going to run them 24/7, that’s three shifts.
So, what they really have said is ‘Hey, you’ve got plenty of machines out there, go to it.” And what all … the other governors who spoke, Republican and Democrats, really said the same thing which is, we all need swabs, we all need VTM. We all need RNA extractor and reagent.
And so, it was an interesting call because I think you can see what, how they’re thinking about what their responsibility is. But the fact of the matter is that when they say ‘There’s lots of testing available,’ it’s a far cry from testing capacity to actually getting testing results.
A lack of reagents, swabs, personal protective gear and specialized equipment has severely hampered testing capacity, according to an April 13 letter to Birx from AAMC Chief Executive Officer David Skorton. The association represents the academic medicine community that owns many of the 175 Abbott machines across the country.
“The inability to secure adequate quantities of any of these components will result in lower testing capacity,” Skorton said. “The absence of certain components could result in testing machines sitting unused.”
In some cases, labs trying to purchase parts, reagents and test cartridges to determine if patients have Covid-19 have been unable to do so, as they have been told that the federal government or other laboratories have a higher priority, the letter said.
* HuffPost/YouGov poll of 1,000 people conducted April 17-19…
Just 15% said there are too many coronavirus-related restrictions in place where they live, with 53% saying restrictions are at the right level, and 23% that there are not enough restrictions.
A 78% majority said state governments that have told residents to stay at home unless they have an essential reason for going out are making the right decision by issuing such orders, with just 9% saying those states are making the wrong decision. Americans said, 60% to 24%, that they’re more concerned that states will lift the restrictions too quickly than that they will not lift the restrictions quickly enough.
* Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted April 17-19 of 1,597 adults…
The survey, conducted April 17 to April 19, found that a full 60 percent of the public opposes the largely pro-Trump protesters whose calls for governors to “liberate” their states by lifting lockdown measures have attracted intense media attention in recent days — and whose message the president amplified Friday in a series of all-caps “LIBERATE” tweets about three swing states: Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia.
Only 22 percent of Americans say they support the protesters. Despite Trump’s messaging, even Republicans oppose the protests 47 percent to 36 percent. Asked whether they agree or disagree with Trump’s “LIBERATE” tweets, only a quarter of Americans say they agree. […]
Seventy-one percent of Americans — and 56 percent of Republicans — say they are more concerned about lifting the coronavirus restrictions too quickly than lifting them too slowly. Only 29 percent of Americans say the opposite. The same number (71 percent) say they want public health officials “to be fully able to test and trace new cases and outbreaks” before reopening; only 29 percent say they want the country to reopen “as soon as possible to prevent further economic damage.” And more than twice as many Americans say the U.S. is not conducting enough coronavirus testing to track future outbreaks of the virus (52 percent) than say it is (22 percent). […]
Two-thirds of Americans (67 percent), including 66 percent of independents and 64 percent of Republicans, say they will continue to practice social distancing even after official restrictions are lifted; just 13 percent of Americans say they will not.
Michigan residents prefer how Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has handled the coronavirus outbreak over President Trump’s response to the pandemic, according to a statewide poll released Monday.
The Detroit Regional Chamber’s survey found that 57 percent of residents approved of Whitmer’s handling of the pandemic, while 44 percent said the same about Trump. Disapproval of the governor’s response stood at 37 percent, compared with 50 percent for the president’s.
Approval for both political leaders was split along party lines. For Whitmer, 89 percent of Democrats backed her handling of the virus, compared with 22 percent of Republicans supporting her. Among independent voters, 56 percent approved of the governor’s efforts during the crisis.
* Washington Post-University of Maryland poll conducted April 14-19 of 1,013 adults…
How would you rate your state governor’s overall response to the coronavirus outbreak?
Excellent/Good 72
Not so good/Poor 26
No opinion 1
How would you rate President Trump’s overall response to the coronavirus outbreak?
Excellent/Good 44
Not so good/Poor 54
No opinion 2
* Hart Research Associates/Public Opinion Strategies conducted April 13-15 of 900 registered voters…
When do you think the coronavirus will be contained in the United States, to the point that the economy can return to normal and businesses can re-open and people can go back to work?
It has already 3
In the next few weeks 15
In the next few months 45
In the next year 26
Longer than the next year 6
Never 1
Not sure 4
Which worries you more about responding to the coronavirus and restrictions that require most Americans to shelter in place and only leave their homes for essential needs?
U.S. will move too quickly in loosening restrictions 58
U.S. will take too long in loosening restrictions 32
A bit of both (VOL) 3
Not sure 7
* Pew Research Center, conducted April 7 to 12 of 4,917 adults…
Democrats are largely united in their concerns over state governments easing bans on public activity; 81% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say their greater concern is that governments will lift these restrictions too quickly. Yet Republicans and Republican leaners are evenly divided. About half (51%) say their bigger concern is that state governments will act too quickly while slightly fewer (46%) worry more that restrictions on public movement will not be lifted quickly enough.
More than eight in 10 voters, 81 percent, say Americans “should continue to social distance for as long as is needed to curb the spread of coronavirus, even if it means continued damage to the economy.” Only 10 percent say Americans “should stop social distancing to stimulate the economy, even if it means increasing the spread of coronavirus.” Nine percent of voters have no opinion.
While Democrats (89 percent) are more likely than Republicans (72 percent) to say Americans should continue the “social distancing” measures, large majorities in all demographic groups say it’s more important to stop the spread of the virus than to resume economic activity that could undermine those mitigation efforts. […]
By a ratio of more than 2 to 1, voters say they are more concerned about “the public health impact of coronavirus, including the spread of the disease which would cause more deaths,” than they are about “the economic impact of coronavirus including the effect on the stock market and increased unemployment.” Overall, voters break toward the public-health impact, 64 percent to 29 percent — though it’s more narrow among Republicans, 51 percent to 43 percent.
Three in four, 75 percent, say it’s more important for the government to address the spread of the virus, while 17 percent say it’s more important for the government to manage the economy.
What zombie movies got wrong about the actual apocalypse, part 1,487: they omitted scenes of people on the street demanding the right to be eaten by zombies.
* Republican US Representatives have responded to Senate President Don Harmon’s letter asking for tens of billions of dollars in federal assistance, including $10 billion for pensions. Here’s the meat of it…
Your letter sets forth the fundamental structural problems in Illinois, and we believe these problems will only be exacerbated without long term solutions: “In a normal year the size of those [pension] payments crowds out funding for services and programs. Clearly this will not be a normal year and that crowding out effect will be exacerbated by significant revenue losses.”
We agree that this is happening but believe that it reflects a fundamental problem with State policy: The promises made in the past, and still today, are inhibiting Illinois’ growth and prosperity for the future. Even in the best economic climate, with some of the highest taxes in the nation, Illinois could not afford its obligations. This pandemic has not caused a pension crisis, it has further illuminated the one that already existed.’
Similarly, the sole justification for your requested $9.6 billion for Illinois municipalities is: “Those [revenue] losses will dramatically impact municipalities’ abilities to fund retirement systems” for municipal workers. While we honor and celebrate the service of our first responders, their service in this crisis will not convince representatives of other states to pay for pension plans that Illinois has mismanaged.
It is imperative that Illinois’ State and local leadership step up and address the preexisting financial mismanagement that makes our State and localities particularly vulnerable to the fiscal impacts of this pandemic. We will work with you to provide more federal resources, but we need the State to address the longstanding issues exacerbated by this crisis:
• Illinois must reform its pension system to reduce long-term liabilities and make the system more equitable to the people of Illinois before federal money is used to support the pension system.
• Illinois must reduce State and local spending and make the government more flexible and responsive to the people.
• Illinois must reduce spending mandates on local governments in order to provide the same flexibility the State is seeking for the use of federal dollars.
• Illinois must withdraw the Graduated Income Tax increase to protect Illinois jobs that are already at risk from the pandemic and to stem the exodus of people and opportunity from our great State.
* The governor started his press conference by looking at hospitalization history. On April 6, Illinois hospitals had 3680 COVID-19 patients….
On April 10, that number had risen to 4020. On April 14, that number had risen to 4283. And as of April 19, we had 4599 Illinoisans in the hospital with COVID-19. That’s a net increase of 316 from April 14.
For context, early modeling in mid March, showed that without social distancing we would have exceeded our hospital capacity by more than 25,000 beds by April 6.
And to be clear we are still seeing too many Illinoisans hospitalized with this virus, but because Illinoisans have come together by social distancing learning at home and staying at home, we’ve so far prevented our worst case scenarios.
Please pardon all transcription errors.
* ICUs…
On April 6, COVID patients occupied 43% of our 2700 ICU beds. On April 10, that number was 40% of 2900 ICU beds. Remember our institutions have worked to expand their bed capacity, which is why our overall bed number keeps increasing.
On April 14, COVID patients occupied 40% of the nearly 3000 ICU beds. And that brings us to today. Of the 4599 Illinoisans in the hospital with COVID-19 right now, 1239 of them are in the ICU, occupying 40% of our now 3100 beds.
* Ventilators…
Of the 4599 Illinoisans in the hospital now, 757 are on ventilators. That means 23% of our total ventilator inventory is currently in use by COVID-19 patients, continuing a downward trend from 25%.
On April 14, 27%. On April 10, 29%. On April 6, and I’ll add that 23% of our total ventilator supply is about 10 percentage points lower than it would have been had Illinois not acquired about 1000 ventilators since March 23. When we had about 2200 ventilators statewide today. We’re up to 3200 ventilators.
Again, had we not established mitigation measures by now we would have needed thousands more ventilators beyond our existing capacity.
So real progress has been made. And while we never know the exact impacts of the efforts. All of you have made to protect your communities, all the projections indicate that you have saved thousands of lives.
* Peak? No…
But as you’ve seen our case numbers in our hospitalizations are still rising, even if that rise is slower now, our curve is bending the right way.
With the current mitigation strategies in place we may not have reached our peak yet, but your actions are helping to keep that peak as low as possible.
* Nursing homes…
On February 28, in my first public update dedicated specifically to the coronavirus, I highlighted that the data from other countries clearly showed that COVID-19 tends to cause more serious illness in elderly populations. And on March 4, five days before we initiated our disaster Proclamation, we established guidelines to maximize preparations at our nursing homes veterans homes and long term care facilities, long before the first nursing home case appeared in Illinois, the state implemented strict measures around restricting visitors at the long term care facilities that we operate such as the veterans homes at DHS facilities. And we collaborated with [inaudible] associations to have the facilities that we regulate implement similar strict guidelines.
He went on to detail more of the history of what they’d done.
* With increasing supplies of testing supplies, the administration has expanded testing…
First, let’s discuss facilities without known COVID-19 outbreaks. We’re working to test all residents and all staff at those homes. We’re prioritizing testing current long term care facilities that are home to our populations where COVID infection is more likely to lead to higher severity cases, especially among black and brown communities. This testing at non COVID facilities will allow us to identify early the presence of COVID-19 in a facility and isolate those cases before widespread transmission.
With support from the Illinois National Guard and the Illinois Department of Transportation, our teams delivered tests to our first two homes over the weekend. And we’ll do the same for an additional 10 facilities today, with more to come.
Second, in facilities with known COVID-19 cases, we continue to operate under the assumption that our resident displaying symptoms of COVID-19 has COVID-19, and should be isolated accordingly and receive the appropriate care.
One change, however, is that we’ve altered our protocol related to staff. In prior weeks we’ve advised that staff be given pre-shift wellness checks, including taking temperatures. We will now be ramping up testing on all staff who work at these facilities, all staff, allowing us to determine who is coming in and out of an infected home, possibly asymptomatic and should instead be at home in isolation. This will be critical to our work to prevent further spread at these facilities.
* Warns nursing home operators…
I briefly want to address concerns about long term care facilities not adhering to proper COVID-19 response protocols. Thus far facilities seemed to have been responsive to IDPH guidance and compliance with IDPH teams on the ground. Just like our other health care workers staff at these facilities are frontline workers dedicating their days and nights to caring for seniors and doing all that they can to ensure a safe and healthy home for their residents. We as a state are deeply grateful for their service.
That said, we will not hesitate to hold any bad actors at the management level accountable. These private facilities are home to some of our most vulnerable Illinoisans, and we expect owners and managers responsible for their care to take every action at their disposal to keep them safe.
* Dr. Ezike…
Again the testing is just one of the elements of our plan, as the governor explained. Along with the testing we also provide education and stakeholder engagement. Again this is a partnership with the owners and staff at the nursing homes and the long term care facilities.
We’re also working closely with the local health departments, the local health departments are the first public health entities that come in contact and assist at the long term care facilities. IDPH also assists all of those entities by providing weekly webinars, and also twice weekly calls monitoring and surveillance, obviously is very important and that’s the primary role of the state. We have the identification of the positive cases through our electronic lab reports that come to us. And also we have an outbreak reporting system.
The third element is for local health departments and long term care facilities to implement our infection control guidance and as the governor mentioned before we ever had a case, we worked to come up with a very intense set of guidances, including the pre-shift assessments, in signage, making sure that visitors were restricted. And so making sure that local health departments can request technical assistance from IDPH we have that ongoing. And again, as mentioned, we have a team of infection control preventionist, as well as infectious disease doctors that are able to be deployed.
We also have enhanced engagement as another another part of our plan. And this involves identifying when there are persistent problems. This could be dealt with with more on site monitoring and also more visits from our infectious disease doctors or infection control specialists.
And then finally there’s another arm to this, which is resident reengagement. And that just has to deal with how we manage residents that are coming, who were at long term care facilities that went to a hospital, and then are trying to be returned to long term care facilities.
* Dr. Ezike also explained “the challenges with reporting data in real time for these facility outbreaks”…
To start, obviously, data is coming in to our systems hourly. So, the facility is probably the best place to get the most up to date data. But we are pulling data from two different electronic reporting systems, one is the … the national electronic disease surveillance system. And the second is our outbreak reporting system. So the local health departments and hospitals will put data into those into those electronic systems and it’s from there that we can aggregate the data and be able to share the data that’s been put into our system. To help preserve the integrity of the data as much as possible when trying to report in real time, IDPH posts data as was reported from the day before so there would be a lag. And because data is continually being updated, we are going to have the data up on our website, and we will update it once a week. And of course, the information that we pull out had to have been submitted, so lag from from the local health department, we can only report obviously what we’ve been given.
So I know it sounds like a straightforward, but it’s a little complex. We’re dealing with multiple reporting systems and a lot of players who have to put the information in. But we at IDPH are doing all that we can to make sure that we share all the information that we can while also being responsible and trying to protect individuals privacy rights. We know that this is a different time, and some of the requests go further than what we have ever done in the past and so we have to try to navigate that line and not veer too much and not also compromise the privacy of the individuals.
* On to questions for the governor. How accurate are those nursing home numbers?…
Dr. Ezike: They’re as accurate as the information that’s put into it. We’re not in the nursing homes collecting the data, we are receiving the data from outside inputs. And so that’s what we’re putting out. The data is as good as the data that went in.
* Some nursing homes are saying no thank you we can’t have you back, even if you’ve recovered…
We are working through that. That’s been an issue where we’re working to identify the ways that nursing home residents, long term care facility residents can get back to their home, if you will. And so trying to figure out the right time when it’s safe for them to come back, when it’s deemed that they’re no longer infectious. We’re working between the hospitals and the facilities to be able to identify that time and get people safely back to their permanent residence.
* Governor were you on the call today with Vice President Pence. How did that go and what was the main focus of that call?…
The main focus of that call was about testing. The White House’s reiterating … the coronavirus Task Force is reiterating that states have testing capacity. And I’ve said this before, but you know testing capacity is a function of how many machines do you have and if you ran them 24 seven. What output, could you get?
The problem is there’s a big difference between testing capacity and getting testing results, and what’s the big difference all those things in between that you need, like swabs, and viral transport medium and RNA extractor reagent. And then you’ve got to run those machines with lab techs, and if you’re going to run them 24 seven, that’s three shifts.
So, what they really have said is hey you’ve got plenty of machines out there, go to it. And what all … the other governors who spoke, republican and democrats, really said the same thing which is, we all need swabs, we all need VTM. We all need RNA extractor and reagent.
* There was a shipment that didn’t arrive that you had ordered. What about that, are there is some criticism from the White House, that they say you have not been truthful about the resources from the feds. And yet you spent 174 million on getting, and obviously not just that one shipment but did you have to go that far, and that expensive to get what you need…
Yes. And the reason is because the White House has not delivered what it has said it would deliver. Let me explain what they are taking credit for.
You may have heard of this thing that they’re calling the air bridge. It’s really just an airplane that they’re bringing from China on a regular basis. Bringing goods to the United States PPE. Which sounds terrific, except for one thing.
When they land at O’Hare Airport, those goods don’t come to the state, or to the cities. They go to distributors, some of it goes to the White House or the federal government, and they keep it, but some of it, much of it goes to the distributors, the profit making private businesses distributors who are getting the government to deliver to them, their goods from China, because they can’t get them out of China, and then they get to decide where those goods go.
So what they’re taking credit for, the White House, is that the distributors have customers in Illinois that they’re sending goods to, because those customers ordered those items of PPE. So that’s a far cry from delivering to the states so that we can distribute to for example, a nursing home that has an outbreak. That’s not what’s happening. What they’re doing is delivering to for profit businesses that are selling for profit to their prior customers who have ordered things from them.
* Univision: How much testing do we need to say okay it’s time to reopen the economy?…
Look, there’s not an exact number, but I would tell you this, that you need a lot more testing than we have today.
And the reason I say it that way, I’m saying not an exact number because you can debate this question. I would argue that as we start to think about it, remember you need a lot of other preconditions even according to the White House model of how to move into phase one of what they’re calling reopening. You have to get past the peak you know you have to have 14 days of numbers going down right all those conditions.
But on the testing front, I would ask you this question: What would make you feel comfortable going back into your place of work. How much testing [of] other people work with you, near you? How much what would you need to feel comfortable as you go to work every day knowing that everybody in your workplace goes home, and they go to, the grocery store and they go to wherever it is they go visit their grandmother and so on? And then they come back to work the next day. And so I would suggest to you that, no, we don’t need to test everybody every day in every workplace, but it’s a lot more than just one test for each person because you would need to test. I’ll give you an example of a nursing home you would want to test the people who work there every day.
* WGN: We’ve received many calls and emails from viewers concerned about their employment claims haven’t been processed and can’t get through they are also, if they want an update, and where it all stands. Some are concerned about bills getting paid. So what’s the latest on the backlog?…
Well hundreds of thousands more claims have been processed since the last time that we gave you an update and our plan is a little later this week to give everybody a full accounting of where we are, but we’ve got the pace of processing up significantly from where it was, again, easier for people to get processed online than they can on the phone. But again we’ve increased the number of people answering phones, the number of phone lines and brought in outside help to do that. We’ll give you an update on that in just a couple days.
* WCIA: Dozens of grocery store workers have died from coronavirus despite temperature checks, capacity restrictions. So far, supermarkets have resisted banning customers from coming inside. What is your advice?…
Well, I’m not the doctor who can provide the advice. But I will tell you that it is of grave concern to me when people are gathering in close proximity, anywhere, and that is happening, most obviously anyway at grocery stores. And so we have a number of very good actors honestly out there who are doing the right thing, putting markers on the floors about staying six feet apart, they’re asking people to wear masks when they come in even maybe requiring it.
And there are also actors out there who are not doing that. And that has led me to think hard about whether we should require people to wear masks when they go to public places like that, because if you’re not wearing a mask and you’re not keeping socially distance. I mean those two things together, lead to people getting sick.
* You’ve been thinking about that for a while when are you going to decide?…
Well we’re trying to put it together with the other things that we want to change about our stay at home order.
But we also want to make sure that it’s understood properly, that this shouldn’t stop somebody from taking a walk in their local park if it’s open. You know that’s not the idea you know, we don’t want to stop people from going outside and enjoying the outdoors, without a mask if they’re not going to be in a public place with others. But when you’re in a public place with others or you think you are going to be, you should carry a mask wear a mask with you.
* WIND: In Missouri, for instance, the state is slowly opening May 4 with different phases for different counties. Might that be the case here? The governor there is saying okay, the mayors of St. Louis and Kansas City, they’re going to extend their stay at home order. Is that something you and Mayor Lightfoot might consider county by county rather than an entire state order?…
Well, Mayor Lightfoot doesn’t have any do with the other counties or other cities but. But I would say that as we make decisions about changing the stay at home order, or how we can even after the peak, how we might phase in people getting back to work or people reopening things.
I absolutely think that we need to look at where the capacity exists for example, if the hospital capacity in a certain area is quite large and very available. Even with coronavirus in existence, then that might be a place where you could do more, than some other place, but what’s most important though is keeping people safe and healthy. And so we’re trying to get, think about, there’s a lot of distances, you can imagine, between people’s homes in rural areas of Illinois. And so, you know, the idea of people going outside and wearing a mask, you know, on a property of theirs that might be 100 acres or 10 acres you know is much different than the prospect of somebody you know on the north side of the west side of Chicago, or going outside and walking on the sidewalk with hundreds of other people.
* Is a county by county idea something you are considering?…
Or region by region. I think the important thing is that that we want to keep people safe and and also give them the ability to do as much as possible without spreading the virus. And so those are the complications. None of this is done on a whim. All of this is done listening to the people who understand the virus and know how it gets transmitted. Even they’re learning as you know this is so new that some of the guidance that they’ve given to us who are, you know, less informed, right, the experts giving advice, have been learning along the way and giving more and more advice. You’ve seen CDC, for example, evolve the way they advise us. And so we’re trying to follow that advice and look at how best to give people the most freedom, while also making sure people are healthy.
* With 10 days left in that order might be here this week on whether it will be lifted changed altered whatever your plan is?
Again, a lot of this has to do with looking at every aspect of the order and seeing all the things that we might change we’re looking at it working on it every day. I promise you that I will be out here, you know, and tell you as soon as I can.
* The number of test results reported today is a little over 5000. When will we see that number go up permanently as a result of all the testing capacity increases you announced on Thursday? Have all of the Abbott rapid test machines been delivered to health centers, prisons and DHS sites and are they up and running? What about reports that Abbott test results have false negatives?…
[Instead of tests] let’s just use the word specimens, and testing results.
So, as you know you need those other items that I talked about earlier, in order to actually get a test result, you need the machine and all the items that it takes to get the specimen into the machine, and of course to take the specimen. So, my optimism about testing has been that we’ve been able to obtain sufficient or, you know, quantities anyway I wouldn’t call them, you know, abundant, but we’ve been able to obtain more quantities of each of those items and we have those. And then you’ve got to distribute those to everybody who needs them and make sure that they’re running tests. So all of that is a process that really has never before been run by the state of Illinois. That’s usually run by commercial labs or run by individual hospitals […]
My staff knows that I’ve been pushing to make sure that all of these sites are doing as much testing as possible and that we get those tests run. So my hope is again I don’t want to promise any timeframe. But my hope is in the very near future, you will start to see thousands more than you’re seeing now, but you will see that if you’ll do a trend line and I do watch the trend line, every day it’s gonna bounce around, but the trend line has been heading up.
* Rock River Times: Should people who believe they have COVID-19 and recovered be actively seeking to be tested for the coronavirus antibody or should they wait for more widespread testing to become available?…
It is hard even if you wanted to seek it out it is hard to find them. Because, first of all, not all the tests are very accurate. And second of all, it’s not widely available so I would say, you should wait to be tested. If you know someplace that is providing an accurate test, you should certainly try to go get it.
But even on the white house call today with the Vice President Pence, the discussion was had about serology and these antibody tests, and even they admitted that much of it is not yet proven.
* We’re starting to see schools’ specific budget projections from other states about the impact of COVID-19. Is there an estimate yet for what districts could be planning for next school year in terms of funding?…
No.
* WMAY: Have you given any thoughts where you want to see spending cuts in the FYI 21 budget to make up for the revenue shortfall?…
We’re working on the budget for sure and obviously in consultation with legislators budgeteers … so we’ll be coming out with whenever it is that we can organize for the state legislature to meet, we’ll be coming out with some proposals.
* Center Square: For clarity, what specific metric and target, or goal, are you using to determine when the state’s economy can reopen?…
I think there are aspects of the plan that Dr. Fauci and Dr Birx and the White House put out that are worth looking at, for example. The discussion about when does phase one as they refer to it, begin. And that is past the peak, 14 days of numbers going down so I think that’s probably a pretty good metric.
And it gives you an idea if you think you know about. If we haven’t had quite hit the peak yet. And we don’t really know by the way when you hit the peak until you start to go down. And so that I think is the, the marker that everybody should be looking for.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,151 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 59 additional deaths.
Boone County: 1 male 70s
Cook County: 1 female 30s, 1 male 40s, 2 females 50s, 1 male 50s, 6 males 60s, 4 females 70s, 6 males 70s, 3 females 80s, 10 males 80s, 2 females 90s, 2 females 100+
DuPage County: 1 female 70s, 1 male 80s, 2 females 90s
Jackson County: 1 male 80s
Jasper County: 1 female 80s
Kane County: 1 male 80s
Lake County: 1 male 40s, 1 male 50s, 1 unknown 50s, 1female 60s, 2 males 70s, 1 male 90s
Livingston County: 1 female 80s
Macon County: 1 female 70s, 1 female 90s
Madison County: 2 males 80s
Will County: 1 male 80s
Cass and White counties are now reporting cases. Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 31,508 cases, including 1,349 deaths, in 95 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years.
* In case you were wondering, as I did on Saturday when I ventured forth into the world…
The governor ordered that all persons or entities covered by the Illinois Flag Display Act are to fly the United States and Illinois flags at half-staff to honor those who have lost their lives in Illinois due to COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/j4yaGhAvkJ
* I’ve been saying this for over two months, but I guess I’ll say it again: The federal government needs to get its act together…
The Food and Drug Administration has allowed about 90 companies, many based in China, to sell [antibody] tests that have not gotten government vetting, saying the pandemic warrants an urgent response. But the agency has since warned that some of those businesses are making false claims about their products; health officials, like their counterparts overseas, have found others deeply flawed.
Tests of “frankly dubious quality” have flooded the U.S. market, said Scott Becker, executive director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories. Many of them, akin to home pregnancy tests, are easy to take and promise rapid results.
And the federal guidance that does exist is so confusing that health care providers are administering certain tests unaware that they may not be authorized to do so. Some are misusing antibody test results to diagnose the disease, not realizing that they can miss the early stages of infection.
Barring a vaccine, widespread testing and treatment is the only way out of this stay at home stuff.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker will not interfere with doctors prescribing hydroxychloroquine, a drug individuals with autoimmune diseases say they’re having a harder time getting ahold of since it’s been cited by officials, including President Donald Trump, as a potential way to ward off the new coronavirus.
There is no study proving hydroxychloroquine, or HCQ, is an effective way to prevent COVID-19; clinical trials are underway.
The Lupus Society of Illinois has asked Pritzker in a petition to prohibit pharmacies from dispensing HCQ and the brand-name version of the medicine, Plaquenil, “for either presumptive (COVID-19) positive patients or prophylactic use.” […]
[Pritzker] said that determinations about how drugs are used “are decisions that are typically made by doctors.”
That’s as it should be, whether or not you agree with the all the loud touting of hydroxychloroquine.
* If you’re a legislator advocating for reopening state parks, and part of your pitch is there’s plenty of room for social distancing at said parks, perhaps when you make a video you should, you know, stand more than a couple of feet apart…
* As I’ve told you before, the governor’s office sends an email every night to legislators answering their questions. Yesterday’s had a surprise…
Q: Are people allowed to go boating in small groups of 10 people of less?
A: Boating is a recreational activity in which groups of people are gathered in small spaces. Boating is not an essential activity under the Stay at Home Executive Order 10 and as extended by Executive Order 18. Only minimum business operations are permitted at boatyards and marinas.
I stored my pontoon for the winter at the place I bought it from, but I neglected to have it taken out of storage and delivered to my house before the stay at home order was issued. That place is now locked up.
But, apparently, even if I could get it home I couldn’t use it.
Sigh.
I’m told this particular provision could be altered in the governor’s revised order, which is expected later this month. I still gotta figure out how to get my boat, though.
More than a dozen residents have tested positive for COVID-19 at a nursing home in Newton and one has died.
Newton Care Center reported Sunday it has 18 confirmed COVID-19 residents. The Illinois Department of Public Health website reported the same day the death of a confirmed COVID-19 resident at the facility.
Newton is in Jasper County, in southeastern Illinois. More info is here.
* Press release…
At the request of the local government, the State of Illinois has activated a pre-staged alternate housing facility in Jefferson County to meet the identified needs of COVID-19. Jefferson County authorities have indicated a recent spike in positive cases of COVID-19, including more than 17-cases linked to a long-term care facility, will require additional resources to help slow the spread of the virus.
The purpose of an alternate housing facility is to provide a place where people can go to safely isolate or quarantine in order to not expose others in their home. These facilities will allow individuals to remain close to home, near family and his/her healthcare provider of record. However, it is important to note, these facilities are not designed to provide medical care for individuals.
* The Tribune has set up a handy nursing home search page using new state data. Click here. However, that nursing home in Jasper County is only showing 2 cases and one death. There’s apparently a reporting lag.
In releasing the latest data, Illinois officials said they planned to boost testing and shore up staffing at nursing homes, while also defending their initial efforts to try to stem the virus.
Before the weekend, the state had told nursing homes they didn’t need to test anyone else once someone has tested positive at a facility. There are other ways residents and staff can — and have — gotten tested, explaining the multiple cases reported at so many facilities.
Dr. Ngozi Ezike, the head of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said the state will now be sending more test supplies to the facilities to catch infections earlier and curb the spread, including “aggressive testing of staff.”
Her agency later told the Tribune it will prioritize testing residents and staff in homes without any known cases to more quickly isolate those found with the virus. For homes already with known cases, the agency will test staff to see who can continue to care for residents, while treating symptomatic residents as if they have the virus, even if not tested yet.
These state directives have been strongly condemned by the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Dr. Sabine von Preyss, chief medical officer for Avalon Health Care Group and president of the society’s Washington state chapter, says that a distinction must be made between nursing homes that have suffered COVID-19 outbreaks and those that are still virus-free.
“The question is, should we be forced to introduce a disease with such deadly potential into a population that has been sheltered?” says von Preyss. “And my experience tells me that would be ill-advised.”
Also, it won’t even help overcrowded hospitals, says Dr. Michael Wasserman, who heads the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine.
“If you push folks out of the hospitals to make space and you push them into nursing homes a couple weeks later,” Wasserman says, “for every one of those you send to the nursing home, you may get 20 back in the hospital.”
Monday, Apr 20, 2020 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
In Illinois, the five people who have the ultimate say in shaping our state legislative districts include House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President Don Harmon, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady, and Governor J.B. Pritzker. If state lawmakers don’t follow the lead of other states and pass the Fair Maps Amendment, our representation will be determined by career politicians and attorneys.
Or, we could follow a path that would lead to a more diverse group representing the people of Illinois. If we follow California’s lead and establish an independent commission, we could have our next remap led by people who have spent their lives educating high schoolers, running small businesses and doing community foundation work and urban planning. That was the result of California’s first independent, citizen-led commission. Which group would you trust to represent your community’s interests?
State lawmakers must take votes on HJRCA41/SJRCA18, the Fair Maps Amendment, by May 3rd or we will be left with the status quo.
Black residents of Illinois were seven times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession in Illinois before the State regulated purchase and possession at the beginning of this year. In fact, Illinois had the third highest rate of bias in cannabis arrests in the United States, surpassed only by Montana and Kentucky. The ACLU of Illinois noted these figures today in calling for continued vigilance to assure that remaining enforcement of cannabis in Illinois not carry on this legacy of discrimination.
The data about Illinois’ enforcement is contained in a new national report on cannabis issued by the American Civil Liberties Union. The new report, A Tale of Two Countries: Racially Targeted Arrests in the Era of Marijuana Reform details cannabis possession arrests from 2010 to 2018 and updates our unprecedented national report published in 2013, The War on Marijuana in Black and White.
“The legacy of rank bias in how we enforced cannabis laws in Illinois is clear,” said Ben Ruddell, Criminal Justice Policy Director, ACLU of Illinois. “We should redouble our efforts to ensure that this sort of racially disproportionate policing does not continue under the new State law, especially in those parts of the state where the track record is so abysmal.”
Racial disparities in a number of Illinois counties were even more jarring. Black people were 43 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession in Tazwell County; it was 24 times more likely in Peoria County and nearly 20 times more likely in Whiteside County.
Across the U.S., law enforcement made more than 6.1 million cannabis-related arrests from 2010 to 2018, and nationally in 2018, law enforcement made more cannabis arrests than for all violent crimes combined. Despite legalization in a number of states, it is not clear that cannabis arrests are trending downward nationally. National arrest rates have actually risen in the past few years, with almost 100,000 more arrests in 2018 than 2015.
“A big reason for our legislation was to address racial disparities in the way cannabis laws were enforced,” said State Representative Kelly Cassidy, lead sponsor of the cannabis legalization law in Illinois. “This data shows how badly we needed to take that step. But our work is not done. We need to ensure that laws around cannabis or other drugs are not enforced with this same sort of bias.”
Emphasis added. The full report is here. Adams County was almost as bad as Peoria County.
Harmon has proposed that about a quarter of the new money for Illinois, $10 billion, be used to bail out our state government’s cash-strapped retirement systems — a problem not even remotely related to COVID-19.
How Harmon thought to justify this “ask” — let alone put it in writing to be picked up in publications including the New York Times, Forbes and our own Sun-Times — is beyond us.
Illinois’ $138 billion unfunded pension liability has been years — make that decades — in the making. Springfield lawmakers since before the Beatles have been expanding employee retirement benefits without putting aside enough money to pay for them.
At best, Harmon’s pension ask is politically clueless.
At worst, it will serve to explode efforts at bipartisanship in Washington as our nation struggles to recover from the pandemic. You can almost see congressional Republicans waving Harmon’s letter in the air and saying: “See, we told you. Blue states like Illinois are just being greedy. They want us to bail them out of problems of their own making, created over decades. Why should we help them?”
* I’ve seen just one supportive commentary and it was in Politico Illinois…
The criticism seems harsh given the state’s pension debt is $100 billion-plus and Illinois is only halfway through a 50-year payment plan — $10 billion is roughly one year’s full payment to the pension systems.
On top of that, Illinois’ revenue will be down, expenditures will be up, and its stock market holdings are probably taking a beating. So is anyone all that surprised by a hail Mary pass?
Dick Durbin represents one of the most bankrupt states in America and the most bankrupt city, Chicago, in America behind those closed doors. They are demanding straight cash bailouts for states and cities that have been fiscally irresponsible for years.
There is a certain strain of wonky politicians who try to “start conversations” without first pausing to ask themselves if publicly sharing those ideas could hurt their own causes.
Illinois created this problem. It’s Illinois’ responsibility to solve it, not the federal government’s. This letter could even hurt all other states’ attempts to convince Congress and the president to back an aid package.
* I asked Harmon’s spokesperson yesterday if the Senate President stands by his letter. “Yes,” was the answer.
So, I’m curious what you think.
* The Question: Should Senate President Harmon retract his pension bailout request? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please…
Sam Toia, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association, said local restaurants and employees have been hit hard by the COVID-19 restrictions.
“Restaurants are down 80% in sales,” Toia said.
I’m growing more frustrated with businesses that are open to the public and are obviously not adequately protecting their workers and their customers. At the very least, the workers should be wearing masks.
I have never been a germophobe, but I can’t currently watch TV shows without cringing at the lack of social distancing. And it particularly bothers me in advertising. Businesses should be advertising their safety precautions, subtly or not.
We did carry-out from Magic Kitchen on Saturday (a Thai restaurant on Springfield’s north end). The person handling our order was wearing a mask and gloves. We will definitely be back to that restaurant (it also has awesome food and homemade pies).
The new normal is the fear of catching this virus. Put people at ease. It’s just good business.
A small group of protesters holding “Don’t tread on me” flags and chanting “Open Illinois!” demonstrated outside the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield on Sunday, the latest in a series of protests across the country against stay-at-home orders designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
About 50 people gathered on the steps of the Capitol, holding signs that read “Open our state,” “Freedom is essential” and “No one is safe when rights are infringed.” Others waved “Trump 2020” and “Recall Pritzker.”
One counterprotester stood among them, wearing a face mask and holding a sign that read “These guys are idiots.”
As I noted over the weekend, the Statehouse is regularly the scene of rallies in the hundreds and even in the thousands. Yesterday’s was tiny.
For some people, Illinois’ stay-at-home order has gone on long enough.
On Sunday, about two dozen red, white and blue-clad protesters carrying Trump banners gathered near the steps of the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield calling for Gov. J.B. Pritzker to end his stay-at-home order, set to last until at least April 30. […]
“You know, what I would do with Chicago is just take Cook County and just build a wall right there and leave everybody inside,” said Robert Tracy, a commercial painter from Joliet. “I know it sounds silly, but I think the rest of the state could function without Cook County.” […]
Across from the rally, about a half-dozen of counterprotesters gathered. Among them was Allissa Hall, a social services worker from Springfield, holding a sign that said: “People are dying — go home!”
Will County is a hot spot. The guy is kidding himself.
Tensions ran high briefly as two vehicles blocked the intersection of Second Street and Capitol Avenue and other protesters had to be removed from the walkway by Springfield police and Secretary of State Capitol police Sunday afternoon.
The protest was part of Operation Gridlock, organized on Facebook. Similar protests over “stay at home” mandates have flourished in state capitals around the country in the past several days. […]
Lori “C.J.” Van Note of Heyworth, one of the protesters blocking the intersection with her vehicle, said she was tired of the “tyranny of the Democratic Party” that is causing people to lose their jobs. She also called the numbers of COVID-19 related illnesses and deaths “fake.”
“Cancel all meetings or gatherings of more than 10 people, like sports events, concerts, conferences, etc.”
March: 85% support
April: 87% support
“Close certain businesses where larger numbers of people gather, like theaters, bars, restaurants, etc.”
March: 84% support
April: 87% support
“Close schools and universities”
March: 85% support
April: 87% support
“Restrict travel by plane, train, or bus”
March: 78% support
April: 83% support
“Restrict all non-essential travel outside the home”
March: 82% support
April: 86% support
“Encourage people to stay in their homes and avoid socializing with others”
March: 87% support
April: 88% support
“Require people who can work from home to work from home”
March: 87% support
April: 89% support
One more point…
What is more, the percent who "strongly support" these things averages 64% and that average increased 6 points between the May and April polls. So the overall level of support has remained high *and* the intensity of support has increased.
While short on details, the state and regional guidance finally issued by the White House last week gives us a set of pretty reasonable, if difficult-to-achieve, goals.
We all know why we need to contain and reduce our risk to the COVID-19 virus: Save lives, preserve health and get people back to work.
And we now know what states are supposed to achieve to get to the finish line:
1) A measurable and sustained reduction in new positive tests over three sets of two-week periods, or the same downward trajectory of positive tests as a percentage of total tests
2) The ability to treat all patients without crisis care (like the tent hospitals in New York City)
3) Robust testing, contact tracing, syndromic surveillance that can catch an outbreak before it actually happens, as well as surveillance testing of asymptomatic members of vulnerable populations
4) An ample supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the ability to deploy it along with an ability to surge ICU capacity
Again, details are lacking. The White House says, for example, that states must be able to do things like “Protect employees and users of mass transit,” without explaining what that means.
When all that and more is done, states can then move to the first and quite limited phase of reopening their economies. But if they cannot sustain all four points mentioned above (and more) during that phase, they have to start over again. And then it’s on to Phase Two of the reopening, but with the same mandate to meet all the requirements listed above. And then Phase Three, which looks something like pre-pandemic life.
So, where is Illinois right now? The state seems to be generally OK with its hospital system and Gov. J.B. Pritzker claims that it is improving its PPE supply system.
“If the government can force restaurant cooks to wear a hair net, it can and should require them to wear masks.”
But after weeks of promises, the state’s testing program still lags the nation. Pritzker claimed yet again last week that they’ve fixed the latest glitch, but he’s made similar promises before about other things — like the state’s unemployment insurance application process — so we’ll see.
State leaders have been saying for weeks that testing is very important, but we have yet to see significant progress on that front. You cannot walk until you can crawl and we’re still crawling here.
And Illinois appears to have a long way to go on contact tracing, surveillance, etc.
But the really hard part will be meeting the requirement for a measurable and sustained downward trajectory in newly positive tests.
Decline doesn’t appear to just happen on its own. The upward climb in positive results is relatively swift, but the peak’s other side looks more like a plateau. Illinois Department of Public Health Director Ngozi Ezeki said Friday that she didn’t think Illinois had even reached its peak.
Illinois, like some other states, has slowed the upward curve of newly positive tests, except for April 17, when it spiked up hard. Slowing is good, but it’s not enough to comply with the White House guidance.
I asked Pritzker what scientists were telling him about how to reduce the number of newly positive tests and he said there wasn’t much that can be done except to continue doing what they have been doing.
Pritzker shied away from requiring masks in public, even though some say it could help bend that curve downward. I happen to think it’s a good idea, but the governor said, “we don’t live in a dictatorial society.”
If the government can force restaurant cooks to wear a hair net, it can and should require them to wear masks.
We know the “why” and we now know the outline of “what” states have to do. But when it comes to the sustained reduction of positive tests, the nation really has no plan for “how” that will be accomplished.
But at least we finally have a road map, which should give the nation and our state a bit of predictability.
By the way, the White House guidance also says schools can reopen during Phase Two, even though crowd sizes of 50 people or more “should be avoided.” That seems unwise, but if by some absolute miracle Illinois fixed all of its testing and monitoring issues within two weeks, and new positive test results began to drop immediately and then consistently continued downward for four more weeks, the school year would almost be over anyway.
But that miracle is not going to happen. The governor was right to cancel the rest of the school year.
* Email from the governor’s press secretary Jordan Abudayyeh…
UPDATED PROCEDURE: Governor’s 2:30pm briefing
Reporters—
I appreciate your patience as we navigate a new normal due to COVID-19.
STARTING MONDAY: To further ensure we’re appropriately following social distancing guidelines we will now only allow one print pool reporter and one broadcast pool reporter in the room for the governor’s daily press briefings. We will continue to accept questions from our portal that most of you have already been using.
The broadcasters have organized themselves into a pool without my involvement and will continue doing so. Broadcasters, only the reporter from the pool team that day will be allowed in the room. Print reporters, I trust you can talk amongst yourselves to work out a similar system, but let me know if I can be helpful. Pool reporters gather questions from their colleagues and ask them in the room. I will continue working to ensure reporters working from home and from across the state are also equally represented by asking questions from our portal.
The only thing I ask is that you let me know who will be the pool reporters that day so I can let the security desk know who to expect.
Please let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to the day when we can return to a normal press conference set up where we can stand too close together and shout over each other once again.
Thanks!
Jordan
Aside from the health issues, some of the broadcast outlets were asking ridiculously repetitive questions and cutting off time for reporters who can’t be there or choose not to be there. Yesterday was one of the worst. A talk show host from a small radio station hogged the mic for what seemed like forever with things that weren’t even actual questions. It was ridiculous.
My own opinion is Abudayyeh has been fair to those of us who have asked questions via the online app and has posed some tough questions from reporters to the governor. I’ve heard no complaints about censorship, but a print pool reporter is also a good idea just to make sure.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,197 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 33 additional deaths.
Cook County: 1 male 40s, 1 female 60s, 5 males 60s, 4 females 80s, 2 males 80s, 2 females 90s, 3 males 90s, 1 unknown 90s
DuPage County: 1 female 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 male 90s
Kane County: 1 female 90s
Madison County: 1 male 50s
Monroe County: 1 female 90s
Sangamon County: 1 male 90s
St. Clair County: 1 male 60s
Will County: 1 female 50s, 1 male 60s, 2 females 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 30,357 cases, including 1,290 deaths, in 93 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years.
…Adding… Keep in mind that weekend (especially Sunday) case and death reporting often misses things…
I pleased today to welcome home from overseas the first battalion of the 178th Infantry Regiment of the Illinois National Guard under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Garrison. 400 of our most exemplary Illinoisans served in Afghanistan to advance operation freedoms Sentinel.
These are remarkable individuals who possess a phenomenal strength. And as soldiers of the 178 infantry also carry the legacy of having descended from the nation’s first all black National Guard unit, the fighting eighth.
As governor, I have the honor of serving as the commander in chief of Illinois citizen soldiers. And in my first 16 months, I’ve learned a thing or two about the 13,000 women and men who make up the Illinois National Guard. Namely, they’re an astonishingly humble group, even though they’ve earned the right to take extraordinary pride in what they do.
In the midst of this COVID-19 emergency, I hope you’ve had a chance to see as I have just how amazing the Illinois National Guard is. Because it’s the guard that’s setting up our drive through testing sites to serve our first responders, our medical professionals and everyday resonance. It’s the guard that has helped to build the alternate care facility at McCormick Place at a jaw dropping record pace. It’s the guard that has provided critical surge support, as we’ve managed outbreaks in our facilities. It’s the guard who deserves our deepest reverence and gratitude.
* PPE…
I also want to share more positive news on the peopIe front we have another airlift of PPE arriving tomorrow in Illinois, that follows our first flight that landed earlier this week.
I’ll note that it’s the Illinois National Guard handling transportation logistics on the ground and ensuring that our protective equipment gets to the frontlines in the COVID-19 battle.
These millions of masks and gloves and other PPE will be taken to our state warehouse where inventory and performance quality checks are done before we ship them out to keep our first responders and our healthcare professionals protected as they work to keep us safe.
If it strikes you as a typical that in the midst of a national emergency a state is directly airlifting emergency response materials from another country, well, you’d be right. But that’s the landscape that we’re operating in, competing with other states, other countries, and even our own federal government for supplies. So if an airlift is what it takes to bring the PP to protect our nurses or firefighters or police officers and other essential workers, then it’s an airlift that we’ll use without hesitation.
* On to questions for the governor. I missed the first question because the video feed conked out, but the answer suggested the question was basically the same as usual. When is the state reopening? The answer was the same.
* President Trump is talking of course about opening the country possibly in stages, and there are parents out there today who have giant concerns wondering if their company says they’re one of the people who have to stop working from home and have to stop start going back into their businesses, while their kids are still home. Can you answer what Illinois might be able to provide to those parents?…
In terms of childcare for example we’ve created emergency childcare. In fact, all across the state that’s something we did weeks and weeks ago because of the essential workers and their needs. And there is capacity out there and we of course want to encourage people to become emergency childcare providers.
So to the extent people will go back to work and their kids will be at home. During the school year, that is one option for people, of course during the summer, people who normally work and their kids would be not in school during the summer. They’ll have that same problem if the kids were otherwise going to go to some congregate setting day camp or something else.
* There are people who are still going into their places of employment obviously such as nursing homes and things, and many of these businesses they are doing their due diligence they’re checking temperatures right at the door. But is that enough given the fact that COVID-19 can be asymptomatic for so long?…
The answer is no, it’s not enough, and what we really need is rapid testing in all of those settings, the ones that you’re describing congregate settings, but also everywhere else.
What we really would like is for people to be able to get tested on a very regular basis until we have a treatment and a vaccine. You want to know that people who are coming to work with you are not COVID positive. The challenge I think as you are well aware is that for weeks and weeks now, a couple of months that have gone by, the understanding by the scientists and the doctors has evolved because they’ve come to see for example what you’re describing people can be asymptomatic and pass along COVID-19. That wasn’t something that the CDC, for example, or the federal government or anybody really was saying, a month and a half ago.
And so as we learn more, you know, the evolution of how we think about how to get back to work, changes but you’re raising an excellent point. We need more than just a temperature check at the door right now that’s the only thing that we really have doing a wellness check for workers that walk in and doing a temperature check which is, you know, takes a moment to do.
* Hi governor. Will Jones from ABC. I have two questions. The first one is for you. And then the second one is for Dr. Ezike. The first question is, what can you tell people who are anxious about when this is going to be over?…
The first thing I would say is that we’re frankly I think everybody is anxious because we don’t know so much right, there’s a lot that still needs to be learned here, and we don’t have the treatment or the vaccine to really deal with this in a way that will make people feel safer.
But, as we’re learning more and sharing information all across the country and as the CDC provides more information as our Department of Public Health does its work. I think we’re, you know we’re getting a greater understanding day by day, and people should feel I think somewhat more confident today than they did weeks ago.
And let me give you one example of why I think I may have mentioned this in the last couple of days. But the report out of Chicago hospital was the University of Chicago, that the trials on remdesivir are one of the 70 different treatments that are in trials right now that the reports are very positive. Now, that doesn’t mean that the study is completed and that this is an approved treatment. But the idea that there’s something that’s gotten positive results, and that at least is rumored to be one of the main treatments that may be available. I think that is some really great news right that’s something to add on to as we see the bending of the curve here in the state, if you can have a treatment. Right. And then you see the beginning of decline of cases and a decline of hospitalizations, having a treatment makes an enormous difference. So people should start to feel more confident, seeing that are amazing private sector researchers, and that’s really what’s happening. Many of these private companies, the pharmaceutical companies as well as our NIH, scientists, that collectively, the United States is the greatest country in the world and, indeed, because we are so innovative and in the face of this pandemic the idea that we’re 70 treatments are in trials and a few of them look like they might be effective in just a couple of months that’s pretty amazing.
* Hi. Amy Jacobson WIND Chicago. I have a question for you and a question for the doctor. While I won’t hog the mic [ha!]. … The PPE that’s landing tomorrow. Where’s it coming from and what do you want to say to the FBI agent here in Chicago who stopped your procurement team from wasting $26 million of our tax dollars? [That’s two questions] Because there’s a lot of scams going on, not just in Illinois all over the country, and they were about to purchase $26 million for pay a company that money, and it was a big company…
It’s coming from China … You should know that most of the PPE that is manufactured in the world, and again, we’re talking about disposable PPE, not the fabric masks and other things which are much more expensive but the disposable PPE which is needed by healthcare workers and first responders, that comes from China and so this is coming from China. I don’t recall right now where this particular shipment is coming from exactly in China.
As to scams. Oh my goodness, I mean I’ve talked to other governors, yeah you as you can, as you can imagine you’ve seen it all online if anybody’s even looked up for any PPE on their own. And you know the scams are everywhere you can imagine, you know, big ones and small ones right and people have tried to contact us to get us signed up for you know delivery of PPE that doesn’t exist. And we’ve had to ferret those things out and we’ve definitely been working with law enforcement, also with the attorney general, I think I mentioned that yesterday that you know we need our attorney general on it but if you’re talking about an international seller, but you know we don’t. We’re not allowed in the state of Illinois to purchase directly from any international provider. And so we use either an Illinois company or a US company to go find that for us and so sometimes in that process. You know, there can be people you know bad actors and we definitely rely upon the FBI, and our state police and our Attorney General to help ferret those things out for us.
* Amy Jacobson at WIND: Thank you. Doctor, I have one quick question. First of all thank you for all that you’ve done and your dedication to this. I think it would be helpful for all of us, Illinois, if we knew because every day we come out with numbers, how many of those are active cases. How many are in ICU. How many have recovered because I think that would help, maybe some people sleep better at night because I know we’re gonna have larger numbers because more people are being tested, right [Most of those answers are online, so she hogged the mic for nothing again and now let’s move along.]
* CBS 2: Vice President Pence says 5 million tests should be completed by the end of the month. He calls that a success. Nancy Pelosi was on fox news this morning she gives President Trump an F when it comes to testing. So who’s right and where do we stand in Illinois right now?…
Well let me respond to the question about testing. I’ve been frustrated when I hear the White House talk about testing capacity, versus testing they seem to use those interchangeably. Those are very different. Testing capacity is the capability, machines that exist in your state that could possibly run a test.
But as you know, well, because I’ve talked about it a lot over the last month and a half, that you need a lot of other things in order to actually have a test result. You need a swab to take the specimen, you need the viral transport medium to put the specimen in so that it can be transported safely. You need the RNA extractor, so that the process can run properly and you need the machine, and oh by the way you need lab technicians and a lot of them because we’re doing a lot more testing than normally gets done. Because we have this novel Corona virus that we have to test for.
So when you think about testing capacity, you know they say well we have the ability to do X number of tests. Well yeah, testing capacity is large, but if you don’t have all of those items, which, by the way, none of the states have all of those items that they need. You actually use the testing capacity that’s available, so very frustrating.
Look today where are we, what you saw today we announced, you know 6000 specimens were announced today that were tested, and you saw that 1100 and some positives among the 6000. We have a fluctuating number, every day it’s going to be different. Each day, because you get different reports each day I’ll tell you today. We got no report from one of the largest commercial laboratories in the country. And so that’s that’s a number of tests that were obviously done and completed, but never reported to us because they didn’t report it to anyone in the country. You know what, why that is. I can’t tell you but we’ll get those tests tomorrow and hopefully we’ll get all of the tests that were done yesterday reported tomorrow and test today reported tomorrow but we’re a little bit at the whim of these commercial laboratories. Now we control our own state laboratories which are doing amazing jobs. And then we have terrific hospitals here in the state that are doing a lot of testing as well.
* I spoke with Dr. Howard Herman from UIC right before I came here. He said the problem with a lot of what you’ve done is that you’ve made the procedures and the policies optional, he said for example masks. Why not order the use of masks?…
I appreciate that, and he’s right. I didn’t order it. And I have considered doing that and still I’m considering doing that.
As you know, I came out strongly and told people that they should be wearing masks and every time I talk about this, wash your hands, wipe your surfaces, make sure you’re wearing a mask when you go outside. But have I put an order in yet? No, but you’re foreshadowing that.
I mentioned this also a few days ago that one of the Republican state representatives Rep. Batinick has been very helpful providing ideas. And that is one idea that he suggested. His suggestion was just for a retail establishment like grocery stores and the essential workers all wearing them, and people who go to those locations as well. That’s a good first step, for example.
But I don’t disagree with the comments of the doctor, you know it may be that the right answer is everybody wears a mask, no matter where they are outside, or perhaps everybody wears a mask if they know that they’re going to be in an area with other people.
* If you do decide to do that [mask] order, when might that happen?…
April 30 is when our stay at home order expires. And so we’re looking at how we might make adjustments. And so, obviously between now and then, we’ll be making some decisions about that and putting that forward.
* The Lupus Society of Illinois has a petition asking you to prohibit doctors from preemptively prescribing hydroxychloroquine as COVID prevention as it’s causing a shortage of the drugs. Will you do that why or why not?…
There’s been a lot of discussion about hydroxychloroquine by the president, he’s pushed it a lot. And then it therefore is being overused without a lot of testing to back it up. The decision by doctors about whether to use something that’s off brand, you know something that’s allowed and permitted it’s an FDA approved drugs, and then using an off brand, those are decisions that are typically made by doctors. … I don’t disagree that it shouldn’t be used off brand unless you really know that it works and right now we just don’t know that it works.
* Me: This is mainly a federal issue, but with so many meat processing plants shutting down or experiencing spikes in cases, is there a state role in improving these conditions?…
Indeed, the federal government of course regulates those plants. But it is also the responsibility of the state to keep the people who work there, who live in our state of course, safe and of course the businesses in our state as well.
So, we have worked with local health departments on making sure that they are using PPE in those facilities, and making sure that the people who work in this facility are safe and not forced to work if they are not feeling well, if they have any symptoms at all. And some plants are very good about following all of those, and some, we’ve had to talk to, have discussions with, and you know have have been threatened to force closure.
* Dahl: You have gotten attention nationally during this pandemic. How does the State benefit and how do you benefit from this heightened profile?…
The most important thing that’s happened is we’ve actually gotten more from the federal government as a result of by, you know, having a slightly higher profile or speaking out nationally.
I’m very pleased with what we’ve received from the army the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, HHS and I continue to have dialogue, behind the scenes. It’s not just speaking out publicly, behind the scenes speaking with the vice president directly, but also White House advisors, speaking to representatives of the various departments, including the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of HHS directly about our needs, so that we can get them fulfilled. … But, you know, you’ve heard me publicly talk about some of the things that the White House has promised and hasn’t been able to deliver. But ‘ll continue to do whatever I have to do to make sure that we get what we need in the state of Illinois.
* How can mass testing be a pillar of our recovery recovery plan when the centers for infectious disease research and policy says there won’t be enough reagent needed to conduct those tests?…
Well this is I think a great example of the challenge of not having invoked the defense production act. If we had done that, if we had gotten you know the chemical companies and the companies who produce reagent to essentially focus all of their resources on delivering for the states, we could have been further along. But I think all the companies that produce reagent, not to mention all the other items that I mentioned that are part of the supply chain, all of those items are in short supply. And all of those items I’m fighting hard for.
I will say I’m very pleased that we’ve been able to do more than some other states recently in order to have all the supplies to ramp up our testing. And then we need to actually ramp it up with using all of those pieces of the supply chain together.
* Politico: What would you recommend to Senators Durbin and Duckworth and Representative Davis who are on the President’s task force to open the economy, what to address first?…
Well, I mean I’m partial to the industries that are particularly important here in the state of Illinois.
One thing I think has been very challenging for people is, how are we protecting, and this is very important, how are we protecting the workers and the customers in each of the retail and wholesale and warehouse situations.
We’re the supply chain hub of the nation here in Illinois. We have a lot of warehouses and distribution. Not to mention manufacturing and other things but how do we protect the workers, and the customers, and give guidance more than just you know six feet apart, and maska by industry, I’m working on this myself. But, this is a problem that every state that is similar to ours or every industry, like the industries that we have here in Illinois, is trying to grapple with, so I hope that they will address that.
* Rock River Times: Now that we’re seeing more grocery store workers infected with COVID-19, shoppers are worried that they will be infected by touching items they purchase, and should shoppers wipe down items that they buy at stores?…
They absolutely should wipe down items that they buy at the stores.
I would suggest to everybody there are a couple of very good and well thought out demonstration videos and articles about what you should do when you go to the grocery store. When you buy things, you bring them home how you should handle that, when you get home, everything really needs to be wiped down. And whatever it is you’re carrying the groceries in needs to immediately be thrown away or, you know, if it can be wiped down, great, but you need to get it out of your kitchen and make sure that it’s out of the reach of anybody who would touch it and, therefore, possibly be infected by something that’s remaining on those items. But it can be done. And again there are lots of good instructional videos and articles about that.
* The Secretary of State’s office says about 40 protesters showed up at the Statehouse today. It may have grown slightly more than that later, but that’s still pretty darned pathetic.
The Statehouse grounds are regularly filled with hundreds, even thousands of people amassing to petition their government for redress of grievances.
Polling has shown that an overwhelmingly number of Americans is more afraid that their states will lift the stay at home orders too early than those who fear they will open too late, and there’s no major national organization funding protesters here like in other states. Both of those points may explain today’s turnout. But coverage follows conflict, so we’ll see how the news media handles this silliness…
* I don’t know anything about this particular meat-packing plant, but that industry has never been known for treating blue collar employees well…
With 21 coronavirus cases confirmed at a meat packing plant on Chicago’s South Side, employees are demanding more equipment to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Workers at the nearly century-old Rose Packing are worried for their health and safety.
“They need to shut down and clean and sterilize, make sure they do not have other employees sick,” said a family spokesperson for two Rose Packing employees.
Both employees said they’re quarantined after contracting COVID-19. They asked not to be identified out of fear of repercussions.
They broke the unions, lowered pay, sped up the lines and, as a consequence, had to import workers from other countries.
The government needs to do something before these companies risk breaking the food supply chain.
* The governor’s daily press briefings are too often being held hostage by, um, less than stellar questions. Yesterday’s “best” example…
Far-right Chicago radio host blames central Illinoisans for crowding the city's lakefront /s pic.twitter.com/vQia0WWER0
* Senate President Don Harmon’s foolish pitch to Washington can only hurt Illinois: Apparently, the president of the Illinois Senate, Don Harmon — who has been in that job all of three months — doesn’t quite get that. Last week, he made a politically deaf, even foolish, pitch to Washington that can only hurt our state’s chances of securing additional COVID-19 relief funds. … At best, Harmon’s pension ask is politically clueless. At worst, it will serve to explode efforts at bipartisanship in Washington as our nation struggles to recover from the pandemic. You can almost see congressional Republicans waving Harmon’s letter in the air and saying: “See, we told you. Blue states like Illinois are just being greedy. They want us to bail them out of problems of their own making, created over decades. Why should we help them?”
* Chicago’s top doctor says investigation has raised questions about whether infant died of COVID-19: She added that “there was a test that was positive, there was a test that was negative, and there were other positive tests for another kind of coronavirus.” She identified that disease as NL63, a coronavirus that emerged well before COVID-19 spread across the globe. Arwady said examination under a microscope didn’t show “signs that any of the COVID-19 had actually gotten into the cells of the baby.”
* ‘Very, Very Scary’: Officials Dumbfounded as Florida Beaches Reopen, 3 Days After Death Spike: Despite the mayor’s warnings, hundreds of people flocked to the beaches in Duval County Friday, some engaging group sports like volleyball or spikeball. Photos of the scene drew outcry on social media, spawning the hashtag #FloridaMorons, as well as disdain from officials elsewhere in the state.
Prof. Akiko Iwasaki, an immunobiologist at Yale University, in New Haven, CT, is the senior author of the paper, which appears in the Annual Review of Virology.
As Prof. Iwasaki and the co-authors note, seasonal cycles are known to play a crucial role in the transmission of respiratory viral illnesses. […]
First, they say that when cold, dry air comes indoors and is warmed, the relative humidity indoors drops by about 20%. Such a drop in humidity makes it easier for airborne viral particles to travel.
Second, the hair-like organelles outside of cells that line the body’s airways, called cilia, do not function as well in dry conditions — they cannot expel viral particles as well as they otherwise would.
For instance, the new review cites one study that found that mice in an environment with 10% relative humidity had impaired clearance of the influenza virus, compared with mice in an environment with 50% relative humidity.
Furthermore, studies have shown that “Dry air exposure of mice impairs epithelial cell repair in the lung after influenza virus infection,” according to the new analysis.
Lastly, the authors point out, several studies in mice have shown that the immune response to viruses is less efficient in drier conditions.
“That’s why I recommend humidifiers during the winter in buildings,” says the study’s senior author.
Humidity today in Chicago is 39 percent. The paper also cites a study about the benefits of ventilation, so maybe open some windows. Couldn’t hurt.
* The paper also points to studies which encourage wearing face masks to keep your nose warm and moist. Turns out, masks could be more helpful than many of us knew.
Coming Monday our office will be starting our next program: “Let’s Face It”. We are going keep a list of Restaurants and Stores in the 97th that commit to having their employees wear face coverings at work. Our first establishment is “Hopscotch and Vine”. The first 20 who commit will get 50 free masks from me. We are going to get posters printed but that may take a bit of time. In the meantime establishments can advertise this additional bit of safety on their own. I’m asking all restaurants and stores to please require your employees to wear a face covering. It does not have to be a mask. Any face covering will do. Let’s end this thing and get to work again!
He’s giving away this cool poster to display at establishments which have agreed to comply…
New data from the Illinois Department of Public Health shows how widespread the coronavirus has become in the state’s nursing homes, with at least 272 deaths and nearly 3,300 cases of the virus reported by officials.
The data, gleaned from 17 of Illinois’ 102 counties, shows that 133 facilities have reported five or more cases of the coronavirus since the pandemic began. In those counties, a total of 272 deaths have been reported as a result of COVID-19, and 3,265 cases of the virus have been confirmed by laboratory testing. […]
The top five counties in terms of cases reported:
1. Cook County - 1,496 cases confirmed, 141 deaths
2. DuPage County - 470 cases confirmed, 37 deaths
3. Will County - 421 cases confirmed, 36 deaths
4. Lake County - 283 cases confirmed, 31 deaths
5. Kane County - 119 cases confirmed, 10 deaths
Unfortunately, there was some sort of glitch and the new page wasn’t available this morning. The page is back up. Click here.
If you do venture out despite Illinois’ stay-at-home order – to go to work, to buy groceries, maybe to talk a walk – you generally won’t get in trouble for not wearing a mask, though it’s encouraged.
But in some pockets of Illinois, it’s mandatory.
Municipalities including Cicero, Glenview, Highland Park, Morton Grove, Niles, Skokie and Wilmette require anyone to wear a mask while in public.
There are slight variations in these ordinances and executive orders; some are already in effect, while others will take effect Monday.
But by and large, masks that cover the nose and mouth are obligatory for anyone working at or patronizing essential businesses, like grocery stories, and while taking public transit or ride-hailing services and taxis.
