* As usual, I’ll be covering the governor’s press conferences this weekend, but comments will remained closed until Monday. Take care and, please, be safe…
Hey Bobby Marley
Sing something good to me
This world go crazy
It’s an emergency
We had tested 5660 people in the preceding 24 hours on Wednesday. And yesterday, we surpassed 9000 tests. Today, we met our goal of 10,000 daily tests. In fact we surpassed it with 16,124.
* More interesting news…
The overall positive rate for today’s batch of tests is about 17%, which is well below our cumulative average of 21%.
It’s too early to say whether this is a result of expanded testing criteria, versus an indicator of flattening the curve, but it’s a positive sign nonetheless for everyone when more people are getting tested and there is a lower ratio of positives
Please pardon all transcription errors.
* Pritzker continued…
Surpassing 10,000 tests is a very important milestone, not only because it allows us to isolate more of those who are COVID positive so that they don’t spread the infection, but also because it moves us in the direction of expanding our surveillance for outbreaks.
More testing means we can potentially lower the infection rate. So we’re going to continue to push that number up. Our ability to test and get results quickly is key to our ability to map the presence of this virus, and to gradually reduce our mitigation measures and get more people back to work.
* Public testing sites…
We now have 112 public testing sites in every one of IDPH’s 11 regions, including eight sites in the Rockford region, eight sites in the Peoria region, four sites in the Springfield region, four in the Edwardsville region, 31 sites in the Marion region, eight sites in the Champaign region, 22 sites in the city of Chicago, nine sites in the southwest suburbs, three sites in the west suburbs, five sites in the northwest suburbs and 10 sites in the north suburbs.
Remember, those are only the sites that are available to the public and the tests at those locations are entirely free. Beyond those 112 locations, there are healthcare providers that conduct tests for their own existing patients, the full list of public testing sites with hours, testing parameters and contact information is available on our coronavirus website, coronavirus.illinois.gov.
* Antibody tests…
I also want to talk briefly today about antibody tests, which have been in the headlines recently and have created a lot of buzz. I want to make sure that people have the facts about whether and how these tests are useful.
In theory, these tests could be an effective tool. We’re craving answers in an uncertain time and antibody tests offer the potential for more security. But I’m afraid we’ve seen many of these tests promoted in a way that errs on the side of irresponsible.
To be clear, these tests are not quite where we need them to be to offer a true metric of immunity in Illinois. This is not an Illinois specific problem. As of today, there still are no antibody blood tests certifiably proven to accurately and consistently diagnose COVID-19 antibodies. There are several reasons for that.
First, no one yet knows the true sensitivity and specificity of these tests. That is how accurate or inaccurate they are. Obviously you want to test to be accurate and not offer many false positives or false negatives. That kind of accuracy is in part tied to how long it’s been since a person, potentially had the virus, since it takes, each of us time to produce antibodies, and it’s in part tied to the quality of the test.
Second, this is a novel virus, entirely new. So researchers don’t yet know the extent to which having COVID-19 antibodies equals, having immunity. That’s a question whose answers will only be revealed over weeks or months, and maybe even years, for example, is there a certain exposure level at which antibodies don’t protect you. Or, if you can become immune. How long would immunity last?
Third, it’s not yet confirmed that these tests are able to explicitly identify COVID-19 antibodies versus Corona viruses that cause things like the common cold. The test must, must definitively identify antibodies for COVID-19, and nothing else for them to be fully effective. […]
We’re monitoring those studies and we’re planning how we could deploy those tests when they’re ready. As soon as they prove themselves accurate and reliable, I will make it a priority to get them into our communities as widely as we can. What I won’t do is run full speed ahead with these tests before they’re proven. Because, among other things, we will be offering people a false sense of security. I’ve said since the beginning that here in Illinois, we will rely on factual data, and we will lead with the science. That, and the goodwill of the people of Illinois, will be what sees us through this pandemic.
* Dr. Ezike…
4828 people were hospitalized across our state. 25% of those patients or 1225 were in the ICU, and 58% of those ICU patients or 709 patients were on ventilators
* More from Dr. Ezike…
IDPH is pushing testing materials to more and more long term care facilities. Since last Friday, we have pushed testing materials to 37 different long term care facilities, some who are actively experiencing outbreaks and some that had not identified a single case. Our hope is that by testing staff and residents in the long term care facilities located in areas with high levels of community transmission, we can detect cases earlier and potentially before an outbreak occurs.
* On to questions for the governor. So the phases that you mentioned yesterday. Obviously stay at home, extended through the end of May, the phases that you mentioned are those to come during May or they come in June? (Are we there yet?)…
They’ll come as soon as we possibly can. And in order to get to the next phase, we really need to see our peak and begin to move downward for, I think the suggestion of 14 days is the right one. And so seeing a downward movement 14 days in a row would give us a pretty good indication that we’re heading in the right direction on a consistent basis
* Are you suggesting people just kind of hold off for right now and not get antibody testing done?…
No. I’m just explaining why we’re not rushing ahead with massive antibody testing. The fact is that verifying those tests has been difficult for everybody. And we don’t want people to get false negatives or false positives that would lead people to believe that they’re immune or that they’re not immune and mistakenly so. W e just want to make sure that we have the right information that is available with the tests that actually are effective. And so we’re not going to plunge into that ourselves at the state level. Having said that there are hospitals and other people who are using serology tests, and they’re working with the you know the fact that there’s some percentage of those that are going to be negative or positive falsely.
* Baseball. Do you think baseball will be played here in Chicago this summer?…
I hope so. But I don’t know
* Can you give us the exact number of people being hired to help IDES with the unemployment claims? We’ve gotten news tips from Chicagoans asking how they can apply for those jobs…
Yeah. So we certainly want people to reach out to IDES that would be the best way to find out. They go through a process as you know when you get hired for the state. We’ve tried to speed that process up through for CMS. But as you know, we also hired an outside firm to help us with some overflow of calls and so on. So, I’ll be sure, we’ll be sure and make it so, we’ll be sure to have IDES post on its website how people could apply for any available positions. It’s an excellent point, if it’s not already available on the website I’ll make sure that it is.
* Why not open the phone lines longer for longer hours until the IDES bottleneck kind of slows down?…
Yeah, so one of the things I explained a little while ago when I was talking about unemployment as one of the featured topics for the day was that the federal government actually has requirements of training, and that training requirement is rather lengthy process.
And because people are giving their personal information to somebody over the phone, and you wouldn’t want to give that to somebody who might misuse that information or doesn’t understand how private that information really is. And so it’s very hard to expand the workforce, we’re doing it, but very hard to do it. And so, when you say leaving it open longer, people are working overtime. But in terms of running a second or third shift. Again, you would need more people and the training is really a gating issue again have. Having said that, we’ve expanded the phone lines, and the number of people that are covering those phones, who are already IDES employees but have been repositioned so that there are, as I recall the last time I looked at the statistics and I look at them reasonably frequently, we’re doing about three to four times the number of calls now in a day that we were doing at the beginning of this, let alone last year where it’s an even larger multiple.
* The Symphony of Joliet nursing home says that they need the National Guard to assist them in conducting conducting tests, the more we can test the more we can prevent the spread of virus is the governor’s office looking in to doing this at this facility or any others?…
Indeed, the whole point of expanding testing across the board has been so that we can go in starting with people who are very vulnerable. Also our first responders, making sure that we really cover the waterfront so to speak of everybody that is in let’s say a priority one status, nursing home residents and the staff and nursing homes are certainly in that category. And indeed, Dr. Ezike talked about I think yesterday or the day before the fact that we’ve that we’ve been going in, in fact we’ve identified the nursing homes. We’re going in ratably I guess is the right word, every day to test a new nursing home to make sure we get everybody there tested in the ones where there are no COVID positives already to make sure that we can keep it from getting COVID positive and then in the ones where there are COVID we’re assuming everybody is infected right i mean we’re treating it as if everybody is infected. … If they have made a special request for Illinois National Guard, we probably would have fulfilled it
* It seems to be harder to find numbers on COVID-19 recovery or hospital releases here in Illinois opposed to some other states. Maryland it’s listed with the rest of the daily numbers. We know that you’ve explained the difficulty and getting this data before but why are there states reporting daily, and we aren’t?…
Dr. Ezike: Well we have been trying to share with recovery data. Itry to update that once a week, in terms of us being able to pull out the hospital data. That is something again that we have to have the input before we can put the output. And so when we have missing pieces of data and if you push that out, it actually creates more questions than it offers answers in terms of if the numbers don’t match but we’re working with all of our partners to try to get as much data, put in and updated in a timely basis. A lot of times, even if we put out some data, there would be additional inputs that would come that would make us have to update the data and I know that can be a little bit confusing as well but we have nothing but the goal of being transparent but it’s also important to be able to put out trusted and and reliable data as well.
* Should grocery stores and other businesses turn people away if they’re not wearing a face covering some employers have safety concerns about such confrontations?…
I understand, but we have put in a requirement for people to wear face coverings. And so I, you know, just like with everything else you’re not allowed to go into a restaurant without wearing shoes.
So it’s perfectly acceptable to tell people that you’re not allowed in if you’re not wearing a face mask. Remember a face covering is protecting other people. So this person is being not just disrespectful to everybody in the grocery store, but also potentially infecting other people, by not wearing a face covering so I would suggest that be the language that’s used when you’re talking to somebody who’s not using a face guard first to just ask them please would you get a face covering and explain to them you can even use a T shirt. There are plenty of examples of how you can create a face covering for free, out of your own clothing or other items you may have in your own home or apartment.
* Reaction to the lawsuit filed by state representative Bailey claiming a violation of civil rights?…
Well, first as you know I have relied on science and research and doctors and advice. You know models from the experts to address this pandemic and it is a pandemic it is an emergency, it has been named such by the federal government we are in a state of emergency now federally. We are in a disaster proclamation for the state of Illinois. And for as long as we have the number of 2700 people getting infected in a day, people that are being that are their fatalities. And that’s happening on a somewhat consistent basis, thousands of people.
We are in an emergency so frankly, I think that a lawsuit about whether or not this is an emergency is a political maneuver. At a time when we probably shouldn’t be dealing with politics but rather simply addressing the emergency that no matter what political party you belong to.
* Should we assume June 1 the stay at home order will end, even if it’s gradually? (Are we there yet?)…
I’ve talked a lot about the way we would do that phasing in, back into the economy and again, I think that the new normal that occurs here, and I hope that it could occur before the end of May, but again it will be all based on whether people are getting sicker and where we are in the curve.
* A sheriff in Douglas County says he doesn’t intend to enforce your modified order. In such cases, how do you intend to enforce your order if it’s crucial to saving lives?…
Well, I can say that, then the sheriff is going to let people get sick and they’re going to be people who end up in the hospital and maybe even people in ICU and on ventilators. So, I feel badly for the people of that county that they have somebody who doesn’t recognize that this is a worldwide and very virulent virus, that is, you know, has is among us, it’s not going away. And we’re going to have to follow the rules in order for us to get through this and keep people alive and reopen our economy. […]
People, whether your Sheriff is enforcing it or not, you know what you need to do to keep yourself safe. We’ve laid it all out you can go to the IDPH website and read all about you know why you should wear a face covering and why it is important that you stay home and that we’ve only kept a central businesses open, plus the other ones that we’ve added on for May. So I think I would just encourage the people of that county to protect themselves
* Following reports that COVID was already in the United States before the first reported case, California Governor Newsome plans to order medical examiner’s to go back and look at autopsies for December in January. Do we plan on doing that as well?…
No. I know when our first case was identified was the second case in the US. Of course it begs the question, you know, that individual was not on a flight that came in after any travel restrictions and screenings were in place. So, for sure, if we think that this virus you know originated in, [garbled] and people were traveling to the US, it is possible or very likely that cases individuals who have this had come before are first diagnosed cases so potentially there have been other illnesses that were not appreciated. And I know that maybe there will be request by families maybe medical examiners will be reviewing some of their records, we wouldn’t stop any of that. If they identify new cases we will have to adjust our case counts, and we will absolutely do that to update our data.
* Many garden centers that also sold landscaping needs were already allowed to stay open. What specifically does this modification change?…
Actually nothing. It just makes it much more explicit. There were people who didn’t understand the order, they were spreading rumors that you couldn’t keep your garden center open or that we had somehow prohibited people from selling seeds. I don’t know where that is anywhere in this order prior and so we just put some language in there to make sure that people understood it completely.
* Are mayors and towns able to make their own decisions on what should remain closed, even if they conflict with your modifications?…
Anybody can be more stringent than the modifications that we’ve made that’s absolutely true that if you have a golf course in your area or you have a business that we’ve said could do curbside pickup, and you’ve decided that’s not safe in your area where that business isn’t safe, doing what they’re doing that is completely up to local officials to be to enact more stringent regulations than the ones we’ve put forward.
* You said the state expanded agreements with private commercial labs, do you have assurances that test results will come back faster than the seven to 12 days you’ve complained about before?…
Yes indeed in fact we, that’s one of our biggest concerns. So we tried to focus on commercial labs, the ones that we have agreements we’ve tried to focus on commercial labs that are in our area. Number one where we could have an agreement where we knew that they would return those test results quickly. And what what Hannah is referring to, just for everybody else, is that the large commercial laboratory companies which are not located here they may have a small location here but they’re generally not located here. Most of their testing capacity, they are returning their tests in seven to 12 days we just find that too long for most people. Nevertheless, there are doctors here in the state who are sending their tests to those labs and not getting those returned test results in that quite that that very long time.
* It’s been several days since the state began listing nursing home deaths and cases we’ve been seeing clusters of elderly dying in Cook County every day. Are we seeing an uptick, are there any other precautions in place to try to limit the number of cases and deaths in the state’s nursing homes?…
I think we’ve both been speaking towards this, we’re trying to identify, of course we’re aggressively working with places where cases have already been identified. And with our strike teams with our consultants with our infection control, preventionist, but we’re also trying to reach into neighborhoods where we know that there are cases in the community. But yet, an establishment in which there isn’t identified cases so that’s when we’re going in and testing all the staff and all the residents, so that we can maybe get a jump on identifying a positive case and then do the appropriate isolation and segregation. For those who identify, so our pre emptive proactive approach of mass testing we’re hoping is a way to get ahead of that, but yes we’re absolutely trying to fortify our strategies to try to get ahead of the outbreaks.
* Politico: The new stay at home order won’t allow the state legislature to return at all to Springfield to meet its May 31 budget deadline. Can you detail how lawmakers will adjust to the new order? [This is a basic separation of powers issue. The EO doesn’t apply to the GA. He can’t prevent the GA from meeting. Let’s move along.]
* What do you say to business owners who say that their workers are making more on unemployment and are choosing to remain off work until their benefits run out, even though they could go back to their jobs in many cases?…
That’s, I just, I don’t know what to say. That was an argument that Senator Graham made when they were trying to pass the bill. And I just think that’s a ridiculous argument.
People want to get back to work. They do have the opportunity to earn more money at work than they do with the extra $600 that’s being provided to them per month is, that’s not enough to make a difference for these families.
* What should someone with an underlying condition do is told to either return to work under the relaxed at home order or be fired especially in light of the recent restraining order issued by a Sangamon County judge in the workman’s compensation case?…
They should report to the Department of Labor for the state of Illinois. They also have their their own union. There are other authorities on a local level. In particular, the Department of Public Health in their local county. But the Department of Labor certainly is an important place for them to go.
* What are some of the key differences between Illinois and other states in the Midwest path when it comes to reopening the economy?…
There are a lot of differences between these states. First I’d tell you we have the best people in the entire country here in Illinois. And then the next best are those in the Midwest. But the fact is that we have different infection rates across the different states. We have different characteristics. Some states like Ohio have multiple sort of medium to large sized cities, Illinois has Chicago which is a massive city, and some medium sized cities. So there are a lot you know so you see infection rates are different and and regionally different and so on. So, there are a lot of differences but there are also a lot of things in common and again, when we’re thinking about reopening the economy we’re talking about looking at industries, and many of the industries in the Midwest are similar.
* What are your thoughts about President Trump’s advocacy of disinfectant injections as possible treatment for COVID-19? And what do you make of Trump’s contention today he was only being sarcastic with those comments?…
I don’t know if you’re goading me with that question. I mean it’s dangerous what the President suggested yesterday was dangerous. And he clearly was not making any facial expressions or any discussion that would make it sound as if he was joking in any way. And I think he’s, you know, all I can say is I hope to God that nobody listened to him yesterday.
* On life after the pandemic, what elements of the pandemic life will stay with us afterward and what parts of our pre pandemic lives are probably gone?…
I don’t think that I can think that far into the future i mean I have a hard time imagining what what the fall will look like.
But I certainly know that one effect of the pandemic is that Illinoisans have really pulled together to support each other. It’s amazing. I don’t know who, you know, in Cook County in Chicago if you, if you are even in your apartment or your house at eight o’clock at night. The entire city in fact the entire county are out cheering for our health care workers, cheering for our first responders, cheering for all the essential workers because of the risks that they’re taking. And I mean, that’s just one example, people in downstate, there are people delivering meals to seniors at their homes because seniors are afraid sometimes to go out and certainly are vulnerable and people are bringing meals and putting them in their front at the front door and ringing the bell and leaving so that you know they don’t have any contact or any transmission. And I just think it is testament to the greatness of the people that the state of Illinois to the kindness of the people in the state of Illinois. So, I don’t know, maybe that was already here but it’s so much more evident now, and I think maybe one lasting legacy of this is that we will have demonstrated to each other that you know that we are all in this together and that we will stand up for each other when things get tough.
* By moving the general assembly into special session, if that’s a way for the Democratic leadership to strong arm an agenda with the three fifths majority requirement? [Huh?]…
No.
Nothing’s been decided about how the legislature would meet. And so I look forward to having more conversations as I already have had with the leaders, and certainly their input about whether we would end up in a special session or a regular session, you know helpful, but the legislature is going to have to make its own decisions at this point.
* Can you debunk some of the persistent rumors about your order? Are any businesses connected to you profiting from the pandemic, do hospitals get more money based on their number of COVID cases?…
I heard the first part of this, what was the do hospitals make more money on COVID-19? No in fact hospitals lose money.
Hospitals make money on elective surgeries. That’s true. And one of the reasons that we allowed some hospitals in regions that have enough bed availability to have elective surgeries, is we wanted to make sure that they could pay their bills, many of them, particularly downstate are dependent upon elective surgeries to balance their budget to just keep the lights on. And so we wanted to make it easier and also there are people who have had to put off surgeries for all of this time, because we wanted to make sure there were enough beds available. We didn’t know how virulent this virus was going to be and whether we were going to have every hospital full. And so after five weeks, it’s clear that in some areas of the state there is real danger of that in other areas of the state there’s not and so that is allowing elective surgeries now with some restrictions. I think was the right thing to do.
As to whether I own anything that’s making any money during this, I mean, first of all, I am everything that I have is in a blind trust, and I’m trying to think of anything that I was involved with before, but no.
* I MESSED UP MY OWN QUESTION!. Mayor Lightfoot unveiled her city’s recovery plan yesterday, when do you expect to do the same for the state of what might it look like? [I meant to say recovery plan committee, but goofed!]…
I don’t think a recovery plan was issued yesterday, that committee was put together. And so, the state will do this differently than the city will. And I’ll be doing as I have been doing, speaking with mayors and and leaders from around the state, from Southern Illinois, in Central Illinois and around Chicago and of course in The Rockford area too, and Western Illinois and making sure that we’re taking into account the real diversity of the state, and all the industries and the differences between those industries manufacturing will have a very different set of rules for reopening than, let’s say restaurants or bars would. And so, this is something, it’s a complex endeavor. I don’t see it as one where you can get one committee of people together to make decisions about the entire economy.
* The Harrisburg city council has called a special meeting for Tuesday to consider a proposal to open up some retailers to in-house customers on May 1 despite your extension. Your thoughts on this, would there be consequences?…
That would be a violation of the stay at home rule and there, certainly I have enforcement mechanisms available to me but I would look forward to not having to do that.
* How can people get masks if they don’t have credit cards to order online? What masks and vendors do you recommend?…
I actually would suggest to people that there are a lot of ways to use a free mask. I certainly am not going to recommend a particular mask maker. But I saw a video of how somebody can take a T shirt and use it to make a mask with tying it behind their head and and so on. But, you know, I’m not gonna recommend, I think there are lots of ways to do it. I would recommend somebody go online and just type in homemade mask or homemade face covering. And they’re much less expensive than trying to buy one online.
* Much of the concern has been around masks, but in some areas now there are an insufficient number of gowns being a problem. Has acquiring and supplying gowns or any other type of PPE become a problem here in Illinois?…
I wouldn’t call it a problem in the sense that we’ve run out of them entirely in the state or in any particular place. However, you are correct, each one of these things as you can imagine, has been in shortage in fact, all of them at the beginning, we’re in massive shortage.
But we’ve been able to bring, first it was masks, we wanted to make sure that we had N95 masks that are very hard to acquire. We’re still acquiring them but we’ve had a pretty good success at that. We wanted to have other kinds of face coverings like surgical masks or general medical masks. G owns are in shorter supply and indeed I spoke about this with our team this morning. Because we have actually a number of gowns, lots of gowns that are on order now and I don’t know what date they will arrive, but we do have them on order. And I know that you know our expectation is that we will not run out of gowns in the state.
* Now that you’ve met the 10,000 tests goal for a single day is this level of testing sustainable for the long term is there any benchmark to aim for?…
You know the challenges in the supply chain in order to get us to 10,000 were immense. And indeed, this was raised on a call that we had today with the White House task force that everybody wants to expand. I heard one of the governors saying they have 4000 tests today, and they’re having trouble expanding from that to 6000 a day. So everybody’s having trouble. Having said that, my expectation is that we will be able to sustain 10,000 again it will let you know like many other things depend upon how many people go to a testing site on any given day.
How many tests we get done is dependent on how many people go and get a test done, in part, and then on the supplies, so my expectation is that we’ll be able to maintain this level. My hope and expectation and then of course this isn’t enough. And so the idea here is we’ve got to keep going. And we will.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 2,724 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 108 additional deaths.
Boone County: 1 male 60s
Clinton County: 1 female 100+
Cook County: 1 male 30s, 1 female 40s, 3 males 40s, 1 female 50s, 5 males 50s, 4 females 60s, 7 males 60s, 14 females 70s, 15 males 70s, 10 females 80s, 11 males 80s, 4 females 90s, 5 males 90s
DuPage County: 1 female 60s, 1 male 80s, 3 females 90s, 2 males 90s
Jefferson County: 1 male 70s
Kankakee County: 1 female 50s, 1 female 80s
Lake County: 1 female 50s, 1 male 50s, 1 female 60s, 1 male 60s, 1 female 90s
Madison County: 1 female 80s, 1 male 80s
McHenry County: 1 male 50s
Sangamon County: 1 male 70s
Whiteside County: 1 unknown 90s
Will County: 1 male 20s, 1 female 70s, 1 female 80s, 2 males 80s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 39,658 cases, including 1,795 deaths, in 96 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years.
First, let me tell you what a half-life is. We don’t measure the virus as far as how long will it live on a surface. We have to measure the decay of the virus in terms of its half-life because we don’t know certain-… That has a bearing on how long the virus is going to be alive and active. So, we measure it in half-life because half-life doesn’t change.
So, if you look at an 18 hour half-life, what you’re basically saying is that every 18 hours the life of the virus is cut in half. So, if you start with 1000 particles of the virus, in 18 hours you’re down to 500, and 18 hours after that you’re down to 250 and so on and so forth. […]
So, the virus is dying at a much more rapid pace just from exposure to higher temperatures and just from exposure to humidity. If you look at the fourth line, you inject the sunlight into that, you inject UV rays into that, the same effects on line two as 70 to 75 degrees with 80% humidity on the surface and look at line four but now you inject the sun, the half-life goes from six hours to two minutes. That’s how much of an impact UV rays has on the virus. […]
So, in summary, within the conditions we’ve tested today, the virus in droplets of saliva survives best in indoors and dry conditions. … look at the aerosol as you breathe it, you put it in a room, 70 to 75 degrees, 20% humidity, low humidity. Half-life is about an hour, but you get outside and it cuts down to a minute and a half. Very significant difference when it gets hit with UV rays. […]
(I)ncreasing the temperature and humidity of potentially contaminated indoor spaces appears to reduce the stability of the virus, and extra care may be warranted for dry environments that do not have exposure to solar light.
Translation: Open the windows and turn up the heat in congregate settings like nursing homes, retail establishments, offices, etc. And even if turns out this doesn’t work, it’s not going to do any harm. Fresh air is fresh air.
Several studies support the idea that indoor humidity plays a role in seasonal disease transmission. When someone coughs or sneezes, they release tiny droplets into the air (if they’re sick, these droplets will contain virus). The bigger droplets typically fall before they get very far, but the tiniest droplets, called droplet nuclei, can go much farther. In humid conditions, these tiny droplets don’t evaporate as much, so they drop down more quickly than they would in dry conditions. Virus-containing droplets that travel farther are more likely to infect a new host.
Bryan warned it would be “irresponsible” to say the warmer summer months will eliminate the virus. But he said that time period would provide an “opportunity to get ahead” of the pandemic.
We’re also testing disinfectants readily available. We’ve tested bleach, we’ve tested isopropyl alcohol on the virus specifically in saliva or in respiratory fluids and I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes. Isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds and that’s with no manipulation, no rubbing. Just bring it on and leaving it go. You rub it and it goes away even faster.
An idea that might seem outlandish at first is gaining some ground as a way to speed development of a coronavirus vaccine: intentionally infecting people with the virus as part of a trial.
The idea, known as a “challenge trial,” would deliberately infect a few hundred young, healthy volunteers, who were first given either the potential vaccine or a placebo. Those picked would be well informed about the risks.
That would allow the effectiveness of a vaccine to be determined faster than a traditional clinical trial, which would require that researchers wait for some of the participants to become infected in the course of their daily lives.
Supporters say the challenge trial could save several months in the search for a vaccine, which is widely seen as critical for people to feel confident again with social gatherings.
A group of 35 House lawmakers, led by Reps. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) and Donna Shalala (D-Fla.), a former secretary of Health and Human Services, wrote to the Food and Drug Administration this week lending their support to the idea.
Nursing home group criticizes state response to COVID-19: Aaron’s conference call came in the wake of complaints from nursing home workers that managers are not providing adequate gear and training while failing to share information on outbreaks. Aaron said his peers in the industry were being blamed unfairly.
New executive order by Pritzker waives some graduation requirements for high school seniors, 8th graders
Aurora Public Library to consider employee furloughs due to pandemic
After reported BBQs and picnic gatherings, parking lots at ‘too popular’ Cook County Forest Preserves to be closed during weekend, Preckwinkle says
For Chicago-area Muslims without traditional mosque access, a remote Ramadan isn’t a new concept
Mayor Lori Lightfoot to preside over City Council meeting after opponents blocked COVID-19 emergency spending powers
Unexpected ripple effect of COVID-19: Important work to restore parts of Cook County forest preserves put on hold
* Framework released to reopen Adams County: Red flags that could cause the plan to pause would be an increase of community transmission, multiple cases in a workplace or congregate living facility, a decrease in PPE or gatherings outside of the governor’s executive order. Simon said the hope is that moving ahead to the second phase of the plan — possibly in June — is that residents can move responsibly with the return of restaurants and bars in a limited capacity.
* During COVID, is your food safe? Experts weigh in: On the one hand, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have concluded that the novel coronavirus can’t be spread from food and its packaging, Anderson said. On the other hand, if respiratory droplets from the mouth or nose of someone with COVID-19 are on the package and someone else handles that package shortly thereafter, that person could be at risk.
“If any of these folks re-offend and hurt somebody else, I will hold J.B. Pritzker personally responsible and I will make it my mission in life to ensure that the family members know that it was J.B. Pritzker that caused them this harm as well,” Cabello said. […]
Some of those commuted include Kwayera Jackson, a former football standout in Southern Illinois, who was convicted of murder in the death of his infant son. Supporters of Jackson have petitioned for his release, saying Jackson killed his son attempting to perform “strengthening exercises” on the 5-month-old boy. The document shows Jackson was released on April 10.
“It’s very disturbing,” said Bethalto Mayor Alan Winslow, who was the lead investigator in the case. Jackson was convicted in the 1998 killing and sentenced in 2000. Under truth-in-sentencing laws, he was to serve all 40 years.
“He showed no remorse,” Winslow said. He said Jackson, now 40, beat the child to death then told two different false stories to cover his acts.
I think that whoever represented the government or the governor in making this decision did not do any due diligence on this case. I think there was a lot of political issue to this. And I think it’s wrong, and quite honestly, I hope to see the system change.
Illinois Sen. Jason Plummer (R-Edwardsville) said Friday that state Senate Republicans could get behind granting temporary furloughs for prisoners with non-violent crimes who are also at risk for health complications — within a transparent system involving the say of law enforcement.
“This not the case of a non-violent offense,” he said of Jackson’s release.
“The governor is not answering questions, and is not being open to law enforcement, or the judiciary, or the media, or the public at-large,” Plummer added.
“The transparency is completely non-existent,” he said. “I have talked to prosecutors, and I have talked to law enforcement officials who have been involved in multiple of these cases. None of them have heard anything from the governor’s office or the governor.”
First, the governor has sole authority over clemencies granted to him by the Illinois Constitution. No governor is obligated to talk to anyone, including Republican state legislators. And, as you’ll see in a moment, local law enforcement officials had a chance to speak up on this particular case and missed it.
* Gov. Pritzker has said that the majority of the prisoner releases are handled by the Illinois Department of Corrections under statutory guidelines which were modified by an executive order. All of his clemencies, he said, are run through the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. He has reportedly granted 17 clemency petitions since March 11.
So, I called PRB Chairman Craig Findley, who has served on the PRB since 2001. He did a 15-month stint as chairman when he was first appointed and was then reappointed chairman in 2015 by Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Findley told me that the clemency process has always been confidential. “We don’t explain them and the governor has no obligation to explain them,” he said, adding that he doesn’t know of a single governor who has talked publicly about individual commutations (except maybe when George Ryan cleared out death row). And he very politely (the man has always been a gentleman) refused to answer questions about individual cases.
* I also reached out to the governor’s office. Here’s Jordan Abudayyeh..
There is a clear process that has been used for decades when governors exercise their clemency powers. The Prisoner Review Board makes confidential recommendations to the governor who reviews clemency petitions and takes action. The Governor is a strong believer in criminal justice reform and that means carefully and thoughtfully considering petitions for clemency from those who have demonstrated a commitment to rehabilitation while serving their sentence. The Governor takes the PRB’s recommendations to heart as he weighs these decisions.
She also added this…
Mr. Jackson’s petition was considered by the PRB in July 2019, and provided an opportunity for public comment and for the Madison County State’s Attorney to submit a response, which it did not do. [Emphasis added.]
In other words, this clemency process appears to have started about a year ago and nobody, including Bethalto’s mayor, Sen. Plummer and Rep. Cabello, apparently spoke up.
Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said Thursday that using swimming pools during the coronavirus pandemic is not a good idea – with a gross-out reason as to why.
“IDPH does regulate pools, and if we want to get into the different microbes that exist within pools – different swimming pools – we can do that. But definitely, the practice of obviously being in a swimming pool, unfortunately, we do know that there is some fecal shedding of this coronavirus,” Ezike said, barely able to stop herself from laughing as she did so.
There are other reasons that swimming pools should not be opened for now, Ezike said.
“You would have locker rooms with which people would need to change, so you would have more people congregated in the same setting, so for a myriad of reasons, that wouldn’t be conducive to promoting social distancing and decreasing community spread,” Ezike said.
That last part turns out to be the most important (and it’s a critical reason not to allow public pool use right now) because the first part doesn’t quite match up to the CDC’s guidelines.
The virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in the feces of some patients diagnosed with COVID-19. However, it is unclear whether the virus found in feces may be capable of causing COVID-19. There has not been any confirmed report of the virus spreading from feces to a person. Scientists also do not know how much risk there is that the virus could be spread from the feces of an infected person to another person. However, they think this risk is low based on data from previous outbreaks of diseases caused by related coronaviruses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
There is no evidence that the virus that causes COVID-19 can be spread to people through the water in pools, hot tubs, spas, or water play areas. Proper operation and maintenance (including disinfection with chlorine and bromine) of these facilities should inactivate the virus in the water.
While there is ongoing community spread of COVID-19 of the virus that causes COVID-19, it is important for individuals as well as owners and operators of these facilities to take steps to ensure health and safety:
Everyone should follow local and state guidance that may determine when and how recreational water facilities may operate.
Individuals should continue to protect themselves and others at recreational water venues both in and out of the water – for example, by practicing social distancing and good hand hygiene.
In addition to ensuring water safety and quality, owners and operators of community pools, hot tubs, spas, and water play areas should follow the interim guidance for businesses and employers for cleaning and disinfecting their community facilities.
Under the stay-at-home order, individuals must wear a “face-covering or mask when in a public place where they can’t maintain a six-foot social distance.” It applies to anyone over the age of 2 “who are able to medically tolerate a face-covering or a mask.” […]
Pritzker said police should remind people who aren’t wearing a mask of the order and all businesses must require people to have one in order to enter.
“People should wear a mask and it should be they should be reminded if they’re not wearing a mask that they’re not,” he said. “And private establishments do need to require that people who enter their establishment wear a mask.”
Nearby suburbs and other major cities, including New York City, have implemented similar requirements. The Centers for Disease Control has recommended people wear cloth face coverings, as well.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot, speaking during a Thursday press conference before Pritzker’s announcement, said the city would work to ensure all Chicagoans have access to coverings and won’t punish those who struggle to comply.
“I do worry a little bit about that [availability], though, and the ability of our residents, particularly in poorer neighborhoods, to be able to access materials,” Lightfoot said. “Once we see what the guidance is from the governor, we’re gonna work hard to make sure we can actually give our residents the ability to comply. We’re not gonna ticket and arrest people because they don’t have face coverings, but it is to their benefit … .”
As the story notes, the CDC has some guidance on how to make your own cloth masks. Click here for that.
Whenever anyone has asked me, I’ve sent them to Etsy. If you click here, I’ve set up a search for masks that are ready to ship in 1-3 days, organized by buyer ratings. Also, I saw on Facebook yesterday that Rickey Hendon is selling KN95 masks, just in case you’re interested or brave.
Independent and new party candidates seeking placement on the Nov. 3 ballot will be required to submit only 10 percent of the normal number of nominating signatures and will file petitions six weeks later than originally scheduled under a court order issued Thursday by Chief U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer.
The order was in response to a lawsuit by the Libertarian Party of Illinois, the Illinois Green Party and several independent candidates alleging that concerns over COVID-19, including a statewide order limiting social contact, impaired their ability to gather sufficient signatures and meet the June 22 filing deadline for new party and independent candidates. Under the order, new party and independent candidates will file nominating petitions with the State Board of Elections from July 31-Aug. 7.
In addition to reducing the number of signatures required by candidates, the order allows the Libertarian and Green parties to place candidates on the November ballot without filing nominating petitions for any offices in which those parties fielded candidates in either the 2016 or 2018 general elections. This means both parties can place candidates for president and U.S. Senate on the November ballot. The Green Party also can name candidates to the ballot in the 5th and 12th congressional races.
Other independent and new party candidates will be required to submit 10 percent of the statutory signature requirements for offices on the November ballot. This reduces the original 25,000 signature requirement for presidential, U.S. Senate, Illinois Supreme Court and Illinois Appellate Court candidates to 2,500 signatures. Signature requirements for other offices on the November ballot vary by office, and the original requirements are listed in the 2020 Candidates Guide, which is attached to this release.
The order also drops the requirement that signatures on nominating petitions be original, physical signatures. A physical “wet” signature would still be permitted but not required on the candidate’s petition. Petition signers may physically sign a copy of a candidate’s petition, or they may electronically sign their handwritten signatures to the petition using a finger or a device such as a computer mouse or stylus. Photocopies of signatures also will be permitted.
The order is here. I’m kinda wondering if the folks behind Sam McCann’s Conservative Party might try to take advantage of this. I asked earlier today, but haven’t yet heard back.
First, please note that the session days scheduled for next week (Tuesday, April 28 through Thursday, April 30) are cancelled. The deadline for House Bills out of Committees, which had previously been rescheduled for April 30, will be extended to Thursday, May 7. The 3rd Reading deadline for House Bills, which had previously been rescheduled for May 8, will be extended to Friday, May 15.
Attached you’ll find a summary of yesterday’s call hosted by the White House, as well as some recent guidance from FEMA concerning the use of PPE in non-healthcare settings. I think essential businesses that are not healthcare-related will find this instructive.
Summer of White House call is here. FEMA guidance is here.
Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge John M. Madonia has issued a TRO this afternoon following a lawsuit filed by the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association earlier this week related to emergency amendments filed by the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission seeking to change substantive provisions under the Workers’ Compensation Act. While the lead plaintiffs on this case are the IMA and IRMA, more than two dozen business groups from every segment of the economy are supporting this effort.
…Adding… I’m told the state has to respond by April 30 and both parties will reconvene on May 4 for potential arguments.
The new Stay At Home order that includes many recommendations from the House Republican caucus is the first step in moving Illinois forward. Working together and implementing smart policy decisions will increase the safety of Illinois residents and allow our economy to begin opening up in an equitable fashion while still protecting employees and customers. I want Illinoisans to know that the Executive Order is not final, but it is a working document subject to change. While I am pleased with today’s actions, we must do more to restore economic vitality of the state while maintaining the health and safety of our citizens.
* Rep. Darren Bailey…
– State Rep. Darren Bailey filed a lawsuit today (April 23) against Governor J.B. Pritzker for a violation of civil rights.
“My lawsuit asks the court to find that Gov. Pritzker overextended his power by issuing additional ‘stay at home’ orders after his original disaster proclamation, which expired on April 9th, 2020,” said Bailey
(R-Xenia). “Enough is enough. I filed this lawsuit on behalf of myself and my constituents who are ready to go back to work and resume a normal life.”
While special emergency powers were granted to the governor through the Emergency Management Act in the late 1980’s by the Illinois General assembly, the unprecedented power and authority he wields under the current crisis calls for an immediate review and reconsideration of legislative intent.
I am pleased this stay-at-home extension contains recommendations submitted by Senate Republicans that will ease some of the onerous restrictions on small businesses, essential health care procedures, and state parks. This will allow residents the opportunity to avail themselves of these activities and services while maintaining the proper social-distancing protocols.
However, one area not included in this extension was a regional, phased-in reopening of our state. Downstate communities, while following the proper social distancing guidelines, are not seeing the same number of cases, but they’re suffering just the same economically.
Thirty days is a long time, and the Governor has said the peak could be reached by the end of this month or early May. He must continue to monitor the data with the hope that we can ease restrictions before May 30 if it is safe to do so. We have to realize COVID-19 is our new normal, and it is time to address how all businesses, essential or otherwise, operate safely.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Jordan Abudayyeh…
At every step of the response to this deadly pandemic, the Governor has followed the guidance of public health experts and used the emergency powers authorized in State law to protect the health and lives of all Illinoisans.
As the experts outlined today, we are now seeing that the stay at home orders and other emergency steps have started to slow the spread of the coronavirus and are making a significant difference.
Now is not the time to stop our work, because we must remember lives are at stake. It is truly unfortunate that a legislator is working against our public health efforts.
* On to questions for the governor. Remember to pardon all transcription errors. Are you saying that doctors and patients can now start making appointments to do procedures beginning May 1st for such things as MRIs, mammograms, colonoscopies and other potentially life saving measures?…
Dr. Ezike: So yes, we’ve been working very hard to try to come up with very safe ways that we can help these postponed procedures and surgeries, which, after postponing them for too long could actually become more of a harm to the patients, instead of a benefit.
And so we will roll out details in the coming days, but we are trying to make a healthcare, more accessible, these specific surgeries and procedures, and we will be working with our partners, the Illinois Health and Hospital Association to try to find the best media in terms of keeping beds available for COVID patients in case there is the surge, in case there’s any change in what happens with that, and make sure that we won’t undo any of the benefits that we’ve done so far.
* Greg Bishop at the Center Square apparently thinks the governor can unilaterally break the AFSCME contract, or just wanted to ding Pritzker: The state is scheduled to give union workers $261 million in raises. How do you justify those raises to people who are out of work and struggling to file unemployment benefits and pay their daily bills?…
Yeah. So, as you know, these are contracts negotiated after four years of no contracts for those workers, and no raises at all. And so that’s why those contracts are in place now. I was able to negotiate something with them. We certainly keep in close contact, we’re watching the budget very closely. But suffice to say that that’s the reason that those exist. If you look at the four years of no raises and the negotiated raises that were in those contracts, they’re very reasonable for the taxpayers and I think, again, we’re looking at all the constraints of the budget going forward and we’ll continue to make changes to the budget because that’s something tha the February budget that was proposed is no longer a budget that we can ever [garbled] so there are 261 million could be readjusted.
* Are you aware of the results of a study that was put out today that found the COVID-19 has spread through air conditioning systems at a restaurant in China?…
Dr. Ezike: I am not aware of that but I will make sure that my team researches that so that we can be aware of all the current information that’s coming out so thank you for sharing that.
I’m kinda stunned that she didn’t know about that.
* What are your thoughts about the recommendations concerning the letter that Minority Leader Jim Durkin put out today, expressing his desire for you to share the modeling numbers in detail with legislative leaders as well as the public?…
Well I think one of the purposes of today you know, he and one of his colleagues in the House have wanted to see the models, and as I’ve said to them many times, there are multiple models and the modeling doesn’t determine my answers to, you know how we’re going to move forward, but it is instructive for sure. So this is an assistance I think everybody to understand what we’re looking at. But this isn’t even the only thing that I’m looking at so the idea that somehow sharing one model with people is going to somehow instruct them about what next moves we’re going to make, I think is a fallacy.
* You’ve been accused by some including some Illinois Republican lawmakers of operating in a bubble, would you commit to holding a virtual town hall to hear directly from Illinois residents about the economic problems that they are facing?…
Well the accusation that I’m operating in a bubble is ridiculous.
First of all, I think everybody on my staff and the Republican members of the House and Senate and the leaders themselves know that I make frequent calls every day to them, to many of their constituents, to mayors, [and] Brad Cole knows there are quite a number of mayors all across the state that I’ve reached out to. I’ve tried to make myself accessible in every way that I can we’re also in a stay at home order. I’m trying hard to reach out as we all are using zoom and other methods of communication with people, and I’ll continue to do that for as long as we’re in this situation.
* WIND’s Amy Jacobson says that, preface that by saying this, Mitch McConnell has said he won’t provide federal bailout funds for state pension funds but he would support a provision to allow states to file for bankruptcy. You have said you don’t want such a such a provision and wouldn’t use it. If a reorganization was good enough for Puerto Rico, with less debt per capita than Illinois, why isn’t it good enough for Illinois? And if it’s not good enough for Illinois, what options would you necessarily consider absent a federal bailout?…
So, I would like to say that Amy clearly doesn’t understand what happens when an organization goes through a bankruptcy and out the other side.
The cost of borrowing, the cost of doing business goes way up much beyond where we are now. We would be paying interest at usurious rates. Our state would be in a world of hurt, people wouldn’t want to do business in fact with a state that’s gone through bankruptcy with the idea that, well if you’ve gone through it once you might go through it again.
And the fact is states are not allowed to declare bankruptcy, and it’s a good thing.
What we do need to do is make sure that we do as I was doing before we got to this crisis, which is to balance our budget on a regular basis to begin to build surpluses so that we can pay down existing bills, that were there before I came into office to make sure that we’re continuing the services that people need in the state, while also being fiscally responsible.
* Cisco Cotto says there are several downstate counties that are being devastated economically, even though they have very few infections. Why not allow those areas to reopen across the board?…
Well, as you can see from some of the changes that we made in the executive order, I listened to many people downstate and in areas where there were let the lower infection rates, lower hospitalizations, so that we could make it more accessible for them to do certain kinds of things that we thought will not spread the infection, but will allow areas that have a different set of characteristics than let’s say an area of downtown Chicago. To be able to operate in a different fashion so that’s that’s built in I talked about some of those things in my remarks.
* A study finds that 88% of COVID-19 patients who are on ventilators in New York, passed away. Do you know what the percentage is here in Illinois?…
Dr. Ezike: I have been following more national and international data, I don’t have Illinois specific data. But across the board we have seen rates of 50 to 80% mortality on events, and we have learned I know from talking to ICU and pulmonary specialists that people are trying different more innovative ways to try to increase the oxygenation in patients who are suffering respiratory distress and that involves putting people on their stomach and rotating them in the different positions to try to get oxygen to different parts of the lungs. So we are seeing that here.
* How much testing do we need in Illinois in order to go about normal life before a vaccine is widely available? What’s the figure in terms of tests per capita? Have we hit a ceiling in our ability to test in the nation or in Illinois because of a lack of testing materials available? What about the spread of the disease in Illinois, do we not know yet?…
>Let me start by answering the question about how many tests, do we need per capita, what’s the right number. It’s very difficult to say and the reason that you know when you talk to the experts around the country, about this, they will give you different answers.
And it is certainly different in different industries, obviously, what you’d like to do in certain industries like the nursing home industry is you would like to be able to test every person, every day on a rapid test basis. So add all of that up and that’s some number of tests that you start with, and that’s just nursing homes. We want to do that in each setting in where you’ve got somebody who has a comorbidity that might put them at risk. So that’s why nobody’s really come up with quite the exact number.
What I can tell you is, as you know, I set an initial goal here for Illinois, because remember when I set the goal we were only in the few thousands range of testing. I set an initial goal of let’s get to 10,000 that seemed like a pretty big number. And it still is, we aren’t there yet, but we’re getting closer. And then the question I’m certainly thinking about this too. What’s the next goal. We’re not going to be able to immediately go from 10,000 to 250,000.
So what’s the next goal what’s possible? And how would we use the tests if we could come up with a number that’s possible in the near future over the next let’s say the two months? Hence, how would you use those tests right if you came up with that number?
So that’s how we’re operating now because the truth is, even if you set a goal of hundreds of thousands of tests a day, the testing materials don’t exist today because the market is so strained. And so it’s difficult to try to shoot for the moon. But I do think setting real goals that are a little bit slightly out of range that you can shoot for and work really hard to make that those are the kinds of goals I like to set.
* Why is Cook County seeing a different range of deaths and cases than other cities with similar demographics? What factors are you seeing to suggest why the county is not recovering as quickly as other similar counties?…
Dr. Ezike: This virus is preying on people who are older, is preying on people with underlying conditions. So there’s definitely a bias towards communities, or areas where there are older people or more infirmed people.
It’s one of the reasons that we have seen that health disparities across our ethnic groups with the black community bearing a higher burden of this, of this disease in terms of the mortality. Again, the disparities of health in terms of the health of communities existed before COVID was here. Again we’ve talked about many of the reasons for that socio-economic racism. Many, you know, loss of opportunities but if you had that to start with and then you place COVID on top of that, then you will have a more serious burden of the disease on those on those communities.
* How will the face covering requirement be enforced, and with the stay at home order now in place for over a month outside of congregate settings have you identified where community transmission is continuing to happen?…
Face coverings, you know, the same way that everything else has been enforced. It’s certainly done at the local level. We’re not encouraging police officers to stop people and arrest them, take drastic action. We are encouraging certainly everybody to encourage everybody else that they know but including the police or other officials to it, you know, people should wear a mask and they should be reminded if they’re not wearing a mask that they’re not. And private establishments do need to require that people who enter their establishment wear a mask. […]
Dr. Ezike: We have community transition in in all parts of our state. I think in terms of documented cases. We’re at 96 counties of the 102 and so we know that the majority of people who are ELS cannot tell you exactly where it came from. So there’s widespread community transmission.
Pritzker: You could say that the rates are higher in some areas and others but that’s not to say that we don’t have it throughout the state. And let me just remind you that that you need to do more testing everywhere in the country to do central surveillance which is
* What will the state do to help people unable to pay their rent or mortgages, money won’t be able to pay at the end of forbearance periods, since they’ve gone without income?…
We’ve been encouraging the forbearance as much as possible. We’ve obviously stopped sheriffs from evicting people we’ve talked to mortgage companies to get them to provide forbearance. Look, we’re all hopeful that we’re able to begin to put our economy back together. We hope that the forbearance period that people will be able to take advantage of will be a short enough period, but fully covered so that when people are able to go back to work, they’ll be able to to afford to pay their bills
* You’re allowing outdoor recreation, why not indoor pools which are chlorinated or gyms under correct spacing and capacity limits? Isn’t that a health necessity for some people?…
Dr. Ezike: IDPH does regulate pools and if we want to get into the, the different microbes that exists within pools, different swimming pools, we can do that. But definitely the practice of obviously being in a swimming pool, unfortunately we do know this here’s some fecal shedding coronavirus … And so, as well as associated with pools, you would have locker rooms with which people would need to change. So you would have more people congregated in the same setting. So for a myriad of reasons. That wouldn’t be conducive to promoting social distancing and decreasing community spread.
* Will you release the raw data for these models, when and where can we access it?…
I just want to be clear with everybody, we don’t own these models, these models belong to the experts who you’ve heard from and the others who’ve been part of our consultative group. And so I would suggest, I will just remind everybody that they have spoken with the press before, they’ve been quoted about what the work that they do and. And I think that that will continue and so again it’s up to them though these are models that are owned and controlled by the people who created them.
* How do we police boating on Lake Michigan?…
I can’t you know they’re just the same way. Look, we’re encouraging everybody to do the right thing. I think the other, we’re not going to be sending police out to look at every boat and count people that are on the boat. But I think people know what the right thing to do is, they’re being told what the right thing to do is and if it needs ultimately to be enforced, then we may need to go that direction by using law enforcement, but that is not currently what we’re looking for.
* Many retailers already fill online orders and do curbside business. How will this benefit them beyond what they’re already doing and sacrificing?
Well, if they’re not an essential business they will not have been doing this or should not have been doing this, but it is now allowed for retail businesses.
* We’ve had a record number of new cases yesterday, is this simply a result of more testing or is the virus continuing to spread if it’s still spreading do we know where and why?…
Dr. Ezike: I will say that the increased number of cases have to be taken in context with what the denominator is and so as you’ve heard Governor Pritzker say we’re the last two days we’ve tested over 9000 people for the first time in this state and so when you look at the the numerator, the number of positive cases over the denominator, all the people that were tested, we actually are still running about the same percentage of positivity but obviously if you test more people, you will get more positives, again, that is understood. But I think we’re still in the 20-21% positive rate. So it’s still consistent it’s just a matter of more people tested.
She explained that yesterday, by the way.
* Jake Griffin at The Daily Herald: Many people in rural parts of the state wants to quarantine Chicago and the suburbs and reopen parts of downstate Illinois that aren’t seeing infection rates like the urban areas. Why has the state not done that? [I swear I did not make that up.]…
I, I’m not sure how to answer that except that this virus knows no boundaries, folks. No one is immune from this virus no matter where you live. And we are trying to take into account the differences between population density in one area of the state versus another and you’re seeing that in the executive order, the modifications to the executive order that we put out today.
* Was the extension of the stay at home order to May 30 taken into account when you gave your updated budget and revenue figures for fiscal year 2020 and 2021 last week? If not, given large parts of the economy will still be closed for four more weeks, do you expect revenue coming into the state this and next year to be even lower than the drop you projected last week?…
There are unknowns every single day. And so, no I didn’t know a week or two or three ago what exactly we would be doing in the month of May, nor do I know honestly, what’s going to happen tomorrow as a result of this virus.
But what I can tell you is that we have taken into account the fact that there is a significant effect on the state of Illinois economy and therefore on the collection of tax revenue for the state. And so we have projected that this would be a prolonged recession, not, multi years, but a reasonably long one. And so that is factored into the numbers that we put forward. And we’ll continue to evaluate that as we’re working with the legislature on putting our budget together.
* Can you explain specifically what kind of economic relief you’ve asked for from the federal government?…
Well, you know, I have been involved in asking for relief for hospitalsm for unemployment, for those who are unemployed, making sure that we provide funding for our local governments.
One of the challenges of the last [bill] was that it set a threshold at 500,000 people. So if you were in a city or a town or county that had less than 500,000 people, you weren’t benefiting from at least from that provision of the CARES Act. And so that’s one of the things that I’ve talked about smaller cities and towns and counties should be able to benefit too and of course the states ahave undergone significant pain in their budgets and it’s not just the state of Illinois, every state in the United States. I was on a call with the National Governors Association members, all the governors or at least as many as were on I think there were 40, as well as numerous other direct calls that I’ve made everybody, Republican and Democrat, there 24 states led by Democrats 26 states led by Republicans, every one of the states is having the challenges that we’re having and needs help from the federal realm. So I talked to federal representatives, or have my team talking to federal representatives all the time. And I hope that that each of the provisions that we’ve talked about, small businesses need more relief. There’s no doubt about it. And so, small businesses, hospitals, you know, all of these things have taken into account lobbying for to our federal representatives.
* Would you be willing to meet with [the president] at the White House to help mend fences and get your point across directly?…
Of course. I’ve been on the phone with the White House on frequent occasions. I’ve spoken with the President and the Vice President all during this crisis, even when the President has been critical of me.
I’m somebody who will do anything to work for the people of the state of Illinois, anything to help us get back on our feet, and to get past this crisis and in a way that preserves our working families and helps them.
So, yeah, of course I mean I would do any of those things. The President does not, you know, I have been to the White House and met with the president at the White House on a couple of occasions now, during the course of my governorship and of course I would go back and Governor Pence, sorry, Vice President Pence who was a governor of a neighboring state Indiana, has been very communicative with me and I know that he would also have a meeting with me if I asked for one. So yeah. Absolutely.
To start, let me explain a bit about the role of modeling in my decision making, since the outbreak of COVID-19. I’ve taken into consideration a variety of models from researchers all across the world. There are often widely different projections from those about the state of Illinois. Some of this disparity is the result of methodological differences, but much of it also is due to data access and quality. The earliest coronavirus models that we had in the United States had to rely upon data from other countries applied to our national landscape, and certainly there was a real benefit in those very early days of getting educated estimates of what the virus’s effect on Illinois would look like regardless of where that early data came from. But the picture that gets painted by modeling gets better when it’s based off of what’s actually happening on the ground in Illinois data that can only be gathered with the passage of time.
We now have what we didn’t have two months ago, an understanding of what COVID-19 cases, deaths hospitalizations ventilator and ICU usage look like every day in Illinois. Even so, two months is not a lot of time in the world of modeling.
That’s important because the very essence of a model is that it gets smarter over time. How well you consistently test past predictions against current reality and then adjust projections accordingly. Or to put it simply, the more facts that you have, like exactly how many people went into the hospital with COVID-19 on a certain date, the better your ability to predict outcomes on any later date.
Notice I say it becomes better, because it never is exact. There is no crystal ball available to us. There are only estimates. Illinois is the proud home to some of the finest researchers and research institutions in the world, and still it is always the case that different modeling teams come to different conclusions.
So I undertook a project to give me the best possible approximations of future COVID-19 illnesses in Illinois, that would then allow me to make decisions about what resources we would need to keep Illinoisans alive, and recovering. And what urgency would be required in decisions about whether to initiate new mitigation strategies or extend existing ones, like the stay at home order. I have known from the start that even the best projections are going to have a great deal of variance. But knowing the boundaries of that variance informs my decision making. So we convened top researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, the Chicago and Illinois Department of Public Health Northwestern School of Medicine. The University of Chicago. And we also brought in outside consulting groups. They worked as a cohort, under civis analytics, using the most comprehensive data available for the entire state of Illinois. Suffice to say the findings we’re discussing today about the state of Illinois were put together by some of the best scientists doctors researchers from some of those great institutions that I just mentioned.
I want to look first at the projected fatalities. As you can see from the graphs that are next to me, Illinois is now looking at a peak, or plateau of deaths per day. Somewhere between late April and early May.
Why a range instead of an exact date? Well, everyone wants to look at the median line as a guide, that nice clear line that cuts through the big shaded section on all the models circulating online.
But reality is not quite so simple. Look at the actual deaths from the past few weeks on the graph next to me and look at the median projections going forward. Reality swings up and down, sometimes drastically affect that can’t be captured with a simple median line. What we have to consider is the whole shaded area that shaded area shows the range that researchers are 95% confident that things will land. That’s a shaded area you would see in differing shapes on every model.
To be clear, the fact that the variance is large doesn’t make a model less useful, but it does, nevertheless, make it clear that it is only a tool to be used.
I worry that people think the model is some miraculously accurate view into the future that is going to tell us exactly what we need to do and when it’s not. It won’t. I guarantee that the model that we’re sharing today will change in the coming days as projected numbers about those days are replaced with actual numbers.
A model is an imperfect tool that we use to add context to the actual numbers that we can chart every day. Cases, fatalities ,hospitalizations, positive test results, ventilator and ICU usage.
I also want to explain a bit about this change in our estimated peak cases. The concept of flattening the curve, only just entered our common vocabulary in the last few months, and it’s really crucial to understand our approach.
Weeks ago, many models, both those produced by our in state experts and those from around the nation, predicted an early or mid April peak for Illinois. But as the weeks have progressed those models have come to look quite different. That’s not because those models were bad models. Instead it’s because their inputs got better as time went on, real time data came in, and importantly Illinoisans protected each other by staying home.
Human behavior is exceptionally difficult to measure and even harder to predict. So that last part about staying home has made all the difference in our progress. Also, and this is very important, the most sensible and responsible use of a model in a public health crisis, like this one, is to pay close attention to the worst case scenario. In other words, when building hospital beds, purchasing and acquiring PPE and ventilators and making decisions about mitigation efforts, public officials should assume that the worst end of the model range could happen, and take that into account in planning.
…Pushing out that peak is a natural consequence and the best indicator that we are flattening the curve. That’s what you’re aiming to do, slow down the rate of transmission, which leads to a slower rate of increase over a longer period of time. Hence, a later, and lower peak, pushing the peak further down the line might not sound like good news but I promise you, it saves lives.
And make no mistake, Illinois has saved lives by staying home and social distancing we have kept our infection and death rates for the month of March and April, thousands below the rates projected.
Had we not implemented those mitigation strategies, the good people of this state have allowed our healthcare professionals, the ability to treat patients to the best of their ability without having to make dark choices, very real choices that doctors in other countries face about who lives and who dies. That is a historic and heroic act carried out by all of you.
Your efforts to protect your families, protect your communities, protect each other, have also given us another tool. And that’s time, time to build up our hospital capacity in terms of beds ventilators and healthcare workers, time to prepare for the kind of surge, that could occur. Anytime as a result of a virus from which no one is immune and capacity, we built in August of 2019. Back in a world that had never heard of COVID-19, Illinois had an average of about 26,000 total hospital beds available.
As of today, our total bed count in existing hospitals is more than 31,000. Back in August we had about 2000 ventilators, that number is now more than 3200 ventilators, and we’re building our healthcare workforce too. There are now 5000 out of state and former medical professionals who have applied for temporary licenses to join Illinois fight against COVID-19. We’ve built up our hospital capacity significantly.
But if we let up now, we would have nowhere near the kind of hospital capacity that we would need the projections are clear. If we lifted the stay at home order tomorrow, we would see our deaths per day shoot into the thousands. By the end of May, and that would last well into the summer, our hospitals would be full and very sick people would have nowhere to go. People who otherwise might have won their fight against COVID would die because we wouldn’t be able to help them through.
No amount of political pressure would ever make me allow such a scenario for our state, our beloved state of Illinois.
* And now the rationale for the new order…
So, the numbers present us with only one choice. Next week, I intend to sign an extension of our stay at home order with some modifications through Saturday, May 30.
To everyone listening: We are in possibly the most difficult parts of this journey. I know how badly we all want our normal lives back. Believe me, if I could make that happen right now, I would.
But this is the part where we have to dig in. And we have to understand that the sacrifices that we’ve made as a state to avoid a worst case scenario, are working. And we need to keep going a little while longer. to finish the job.
* More info…
On a more optimistic note, my team and I are finalizing the next step principles for safely moving toward reopening in phases. We are making progress building out testing and launching our contact tracing initiative. So that is so important to us that over time we will be able to realize the new normal.
We’ll be sharing more on that in the days and weeks ahead. On another optimistic note, May will look somewhat different than March and April.
I know that even with these changes, this stay at home order leaves many restrictions in place. And in the coming weeks as we get to the point of working our way down to the other side of the peak, as we move forward, there will be more to do to get people back to work and open up even more.
Understand that these are not choices that are made arbitrarily. These changes are what the data says that we can offer the people of Illinois, without risking so much viral transmission, that our hospitals will again become or potentially become overrun.
* Warning…
That said, if we start to see crowds and people violating the order or breaking the rules, I will need to bring back these restrictions. I’m hopeful that we will not need to do that.
* Reasoning with people…
Folks, this is a battle that you never asked to fight, I know that. I also know that our doctors and our nurses and our healthcare professionals, never asked to lead us through a pandemic. Our essential workers never asked to man the frontlines of society, our small businesses never asked to sacrifice their bottom line to an invisible enemy.
I see your pain. And I am so, so very sorry for it. But for every person who wants to go to dinner or hang out with friends in a park or swing open the sole their salon doors, there is a family mourning the death of someone they love. There is a parent, a child, a friend who would give anything to have their greatest strain be the difficulties of staying home, and not the unimaginable pain of a life loss too soon.
I’m not in the business of comparing suffering in a pandemic. Everyone is allowed to hurt, but we have the opportunity to prevent the pain of loss from touching the lives of thousands, we have the opportunity to follow the leadership of the countless nonprofits and community leaders and families across Illinois, who have demonstrated their courage and their empathy and their willingness to help, Illinois has the best people in the world. And I’ve said all along that I will fight like hell for you.
I’m asking you to hold on for just a little while longer. To help make sure that we all see through to the other side of this struggle. One day I pray that this virus will be a memory. But the strength that we found together will be something that we carry with us forever.
* Professor Nigel Goldenfeld of UIUC…
So let me tell you a little bit about modeling, but in my own language. Modeling an epidemic is rather like modeling the trajectory of a rocket. When you don’t know where it started from, in what direction it was pointing and how much fuel is onboard the rocket and you can’t even see the rocket, modeling an epidemic is not rocket science. It’s harder.
* Prof. Sergie Maslov of UIUC…
The success of social distancing is measured by what did not happen. Our calculations show that the number of deaths would have been about 20 times as high as they are today.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,826 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 123 additional deaths.
Boone County: 1 male 80s
Champaign County: 1 male 90s
Cook County: 1 male 20s, 1 male 30s, 2 females 40s, 1 male 40s, 3 females 50s, 3 males 50s, 3 females 60s, 7 males 60s, 9 females 70s, 13 males 70s, 8 females 80s, 8 males 80s, 10 females 90s, 2 males 90s
DuPage County: 1 male 60s, 4 females 70s, 3 males 70s, 1 female 80s, 3 males 80s, 2 females 90s
Fayette County: 1 female 90s
Jackson County: 1 female 70s
Kane County: 1 male 70s, 1 male 90s
Kankakee County: 1 female 80s, 4 males 80s
Kendall County: 1 male 70s
Lake County: 1 male 60s, 2 females 70s, 3 males 70s, 2 females 80s, 2 males 80s, 1 male 100+
McHenry County: 1 female 40s, 1 male 40s, 1 female 70s, 1 male 80s
Sangamon County: 1male 70s
Will County: 1 male 50s, 1 male 60s, 2 females 70s, 1 female 80s, 1 male 80s, 2 males 90s
Winnebago County: 1 female 60s, 1 male 80s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 36,934 cases, including 1,688 deaths, in 96 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years.
…Adding… From Dr. Ezike…
Right now statewide medical surgical bed availability remains relatively flat, similar to ICU Bed Availability.
Although use has been increasing slowly, capacity has also been increasing, thereby maintaining relatively stable levels.
As of yesterday, 4877 individuals were reported to be hospitalized with COVID-19, of those 1268 patients were in the ICU and 766 patients were on ventilators.
* Press release [Pritzker said today the order will be formally issued next week and last through the end of May]…
Based on data from scientists and health experts and after consulting with stakeholders across the state, Governor JB Pritzker announced that he will sign a modified version of the state’s stay at home order that will go into effect on May 1 to continue the life-saving progress made over the last month while also allowing residents additional in the safest way possible.
In conjunction with today’s announcement, the Governor released modeling today put together by top academic institutions and researchers in Illinois that predicts the course of coronavirus in the state over the coming months. On our current trajectory, the state is projected to see a peak or plateau of deaths per day between late April and early May, but if the stay at home order were lifted this week, the model anticipates a second wave of the outbreak in Illinois starting in May, which would claim tens of thousands of lives and greatly exceed the state’s hospital capacity.
“Make no mistake, Illinois has saved lives. By staying home and social distancing, we have kept our infection and death rates for the months of March and April thousands below the rates projected had we not implemented these mitigation strategies,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “I know how badly we all want our normal lives back. But this is the part where we have to dig in and understand that the sacrifices we’ve made as a state to avoid a worst-case scenario are working — and we need to keep going a little while longer to finish the job.”
MODIFIED STAY AT HOME ORDER
Lifting mitigation measures is only possible with widespread availability and access to COVID-19 testing, tracing and treatment. The data show that if the state were to lift mitigations abruptly this week, this would result in a second wave of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
After consulting with doctors, scientists and experts in Illinois and across the world, the Governor has announced he will sign a modified version of the state’s stay at home order that will go into effect on May 1 and extend through the end of the month. The modified order will strengthen the state’s social distancing requirements while allowing residents additional flexibility and provide measured relief to non-essential businesses in the safest way possible.
The new executive order will include the following modifications effective May 1:
OUTDOOR RECREATION: State parks will begin a phased re-opening under guidance from the Department of Natural Resources. Fishing and boating in groups of no more than two people will be permitted. A list of parks that will be open on May 1 and additional guidelines can be found on the Illinois Department of Natural Resources website HERE . Golf will be permitted under strict safety guidelines provided by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) and when ensuring that social distancing is followed.
NEW ESSENTIAL BUSINESSES: Greenhouses, garden centers and nurseries may re-open as essential businesses. These stores must follow social distancing requirements and must require that employees and customers wear a face covering. Animal grooming services may also re-open.
NON-ESSENTIAL RETAIL: Retail stores not designated as non-essential businesses and operations may re-open to fulfill telephone and online orders through pick-up outside the store and delivery.
FACE COVERINGS: Beginning on May 1, individuals will be required to wear a face-covering or a mask when in a public place where they can’t maintain a six-foot social distance. Face-coverings will be required in public indoor spaces, such as stores. This new requirement applies to all individuals over the age of two who are able to medically tolerate a face-covering or a mask.
ESSENTIAL BUSINESSES AND MANUFACTURING: Essential businesses and manufacturers will be required to provide face-coverings to all employees who are not able to maintain six-feet of social distancing, as well as follow new requirements that maximize social distancing and prioritize the well-being of employees and customers. This will include occupancy limits for essential businesses and precautions such as staggering shifts and operating only essential lines for manufacturers.
SCHOOLS: Educational institutions may allow and establish procedures for pick-up of necessary supplies or student belongings. Dormitory move-outs must follow public health guidelines, including social distancing.
The Illinois Department of Public Health will also be issuing guidance to surgi-centers and hospitals to allow for certain elective surgeries for non-life-threatening conditions, starting on May 1. Facilities will need to meet specific criteria, including proper PPE, ensuring enough overall space for COVID-19 patients remains available, and testing of elective surgery patients to ensure COVID-19 negative status.
“For our analysis, we looked for studies that made stronger claims to identifying a causal effect of individual laws,” said Andrew Morral, one of the authors of the report. “They had to show that changes (for instance, in suicide rates) that are attributed to the law occurred only after the law was implemented (not before), and did not occur in states where the law was not implemented.”
First, there was a clear consensus (indicated by three or more high-quality studies in agreement) that stand-your-ground laws, which allow people to use guns to defend themselves in public even if retreating is an option, result in higher overall rates of gun homicide. The higher rates aren’t simply from “bad guys” getting shot; the research shows the additional deaths created by stand-your-ground laws far surpass the documented cases of defensive gun use in the United States.
There was also a broad consensus that child access prevention laws, which set requirements for how guns must be stored at home, are effective in reducing self-inflicted gun injuries among children and adults.
For instance, there is moderate evidence that banning gun purchases by people under domestic violence restraining orders decreases intimate-partner homicides. The research also showed moderate evidence that background checks reduce gun homicides, and that waiting periods for firearms purchases reduce gun suicides and overall homicide.
There’s some evidence, for instance, that licensing requirements reduce suicides, that bans on gun ownership among the mentally ill reduce violent crime, that “right-to-carry” laws increase violent crime, that minimum purchasing age requirements reduce youth suicides, and that assault weapon bans end up boosting sales of those weapons in the period before the ban takes place.
The study found “no scholarly consensus” on “red flag” laws and mandatory gun-safety training. And there is no high quality research of gun-free zones and armed school employees.
That’s not to say some laws don’t work. It’s just that nobody has yet shown with some scientific certainty that they do.
Thursday, Apr 23, 2020 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
The Illinois Kidney Care Alliance (IKCA) and its dialysis provider member companies are working diligently across Illinois to support dialysis patients and their caregivers in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Given their underlying comorbidities, people with kidney failure are at a greater risk of complications if they contract COVID-19. To offset this concern, Illinois’ dialysis providers have instituted advanced infection control protocols in their clinics to help give care teams and patients protection against possible infection.
Dialysis patients should:
Dialysis patients should continue to take any medicine prescribed by their physicians and should NOT miss their treatments.
A rash of coronavirus outbreaks at dozens of meat packing plants across the nation is far more extensive than previously thought, according to an exclusive review of cases by USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.
And it could get worse. More than 150 of America’s largest meat processing plants operate in counties where the rate of coronavirus infection is already among the nation’s highest, based on the media outlets’ analysis of slaughterhouse locations and county-level COVID-19 infection rates.
These facilities represent more than 1 in 3 of the nation’s biggest beef, pork and poultry processing plants. Rates of infection around these plants are higher than those of 75% of other U.S. counties, the analysis found.
And while experts say the industry has thus far maintained sufficient production despite infections in at least 2,200 workers at 48 plants, there are fears that the number of cases could continue to rise and that meat packing plants will become the next disaster zones.
* The News-Gazette has a regular feature where Champaign-Urbana Public Health Administrator Julie Pryde answers questions from readers. It’s a great service and here’s the latest…
Q: I was hoping you could follow up on the question from Thursday about cloth mask protection. If a cloth mask can’t protect the wearer from getting infected, how can the mask stop you from spreading the virus? I find this confusing. Wouldn’t it be as porous in either direction?
A: The cloth masks are intended to prevent droplets from spreading when someone is talking, coughing, sneezing, etc. They also help prevent individuals from touching their nose and mouth. The masks should be made of at least two layers of cloth. The masks will absorb droplets. Remember that the masks are not to replace social distancing, cough/sneeze etiquette or thorough and frequent hand-washing. Ideally, everyone who is in public, especially while shopping or accessing other essential services, would wear these to help protect each other.
A new virus-repelling face mask is one of the things on the fast track to development at Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center through a program launched to address the pandemic.
The Peoria-based center is an innovation hub for clinicians from OSF HealthCare, the University Of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria, and engineers from the University of Illinois in Urbana. The Jump Arches program has earmarked $750,000 for the program, which is developing things to address some of the most pressing issues healthcare workers and the public are facing during the pandemic. […]
“These new materials don’t allow any of the virus particles to adhere to the outside of the mask,” said Vozenilek. “Because as you breathe in and out you are pulling the air in on the outside of the mask and particles have a tendency to gather as you are pulling the air in. So the mask becomes contaminated. So in the future, the materials will be designed so the viral particles can’t adhere to further reduce contagion.”
Other research teams are working on disinfection methods for the masks.
Furloughs and layoffs for workers at Sinai hospitals
Chicago’s warm-weather businesses prepare for the worst as coronavirus shutdowns are extended
Evanston joins at least 18 Chicago suburbs requiring face coverings in public
City to hold first online town hall on COVID-19 aimed at slowing spread of virus in majority black communities
For decades Chicago’s lunchtime dining room, Manny’s now fights for new business during coronavirus pandemic
* Illinois roundup…
* Meat supply chain begins to feel effects of COVID-19: “When one section of the supply chain has a slowdown or complete shutdown, it bottlenecks the rest of the system,” Illinois Farm Bureau President Richard Guebert, Jr. said. “With highly perishable products like milk or vegetables, the bottleneck is slowing down the process longer than the items have in shelf life.”
* Hidden coronavirus outbreaks spread through cities like Chicago, New York far earlier than Americans knew, researchers say: Vespignani said he and his research team warned officials of the silent spread, posting some of their early projections in mid-February. “We were talking to officials here, and it was the same reaction we got in Italy, in the U.K., in Spain,” Vespignani said. “They told me, ‘OK, that’s happening on your computer, not in reality.’ “Look,” he added, “No one’s going to shut down a country based on a model.”
* Lawmakers slowly preparing for session to reopen: Officials have been careful, though, to stress that the working groups are not legislative committees and that they are not authorized to draft legislation, hear testimony or take votes. “These are far more informal,” Rep. Michael Zalewski, a Riverside Democrat and co-chair of the House economic recovery working group, said this week. “I think they’re simply ways for us to congregate and hear each other out and compare notes and ideas about what we’re going to face in the near future, when we do return to normal regular order.” The difference between “working groups” and legislative committees is important because Article IV, Section 5 of the Illinois Constitution requires all meetings of the General Assembly, as well as legislative committees and commissions to be open to the public, unless two-thirds of the chamber votes to close them.
* Top vaccine doctor says his concern about Trump’s coronavirus treatment theory led to ouster from federal agency
* Gilead’s coronavirus drug flops in first trial: The Chinese trial showed the antiviral remdesivir did not improve patients’ condition or reduce the pathogen’s presence in the bloodstream
* It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he does this because he’s been hinting at it for at least a week, but this story includes a lot of pure speculation…
Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to extend Illinois’ stay-at-home order Thursday, sources tell NBC 5.
With just one week left until the current April 30 deadline, Pritzker is poised to reveal an extension during his 2:30 p.m. coronavirus press briefing.
Though it’s not clear how long he will extend the order for, state law allows a governor to sign an executive order for 30 days. Sources believe the order could be extended through May 30.
The order is expected to include a new requirement that residents cover their faces in public spaces where social distancing is difficult.
Pritzker could also lift some restrictions on the order. Lawmakers and businesses have asked Pritzker to open state parks and golf courses and allow elective surgeries.
The press conference starts in just a couple of hours. We’ll know then.
* Meanwhile, a single alderman introduces an ordinance and the headline reads “Facial coverings would be required in many public settings in Chicago under City Council plan.” C’mon…
Lincoln Park Ald. Michele Smith, 43rd, introduced her ordinance Wednesday and said she’ll push for a quick hearing. “If we really want to get this behind us, everyone has to wear a mask in public,” Smith said. “The real impediment to that happening is social acceptance, so this ordinance would get everyone on the same page by making it a requirement.” […]
Asked Wednesday about whether she is generally considering requiring face coverings, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said it’s being discussed, but implementing such rules would be hard.
“The challenge is making sure every member of the public has the same accessibility to some kind of face covering,” she said. “And we know, from the disparities in our city, that that is not so. What is possible in Lincoln Park is not the same as what’s possible in Austin or Englewood or Roseland. So we have to have a policy that is consistent with the realities of people’s lives. And while we are going to continue to encourage people to wear masks in congregate settings, mandating that without giving people the tools to actually comply — and we’re not going to lock people up because they aren’t wearing masks in public. So, these are nuanced issues.”
…Adding… Email…
Hey Rich,
Point of clarification, in response to ‘Meanwhile, a single alderman introduces an ordinance and the headline reads “Facial coverings would be required in many public settings in Chicago under City Council plan.”’
41 out of the 50 aldermen signed on to cosponsor this ordinance. We were working the phones all weekend.
(of course, it may be a non-issue as of a couple hours ago…)
Thank you for keeping us up to speed on the state stuff - it’s been very helpful. I mean that with zero percent snark.
* For the most up-to-date information on COVID-19 resources, please visit and subscribe at - for mobile updates, text COVID19 to 78015 or email: coronavirus@chicago.gov. *
Erik Wallenius
Chief of Staff
Alderman Michele Smith
* And we don’t even know what will be in the next stay at home order, so this is a silly headline…
McHenry drive-in theater owner making plans to reopen May 1. Extension of stay-at-home order would nix that idea.
Illinois Dept. of Public Health death projections due to COVID-19. The gray line indicates range of deaths, which at its peak could hit between 50 and 150 deaths. The black line is reported deaths. The green line is the University of Chicago median line; the orange line is the median line projected by the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign researchers.
And based on the projections, the peak “should be somewhere starting now through the first week of May,” [Cameron Mock, who oversees the state’s COVID-19 projections] told the Sun-Times.
“I think it’s tough to say, but I think a couple of weeks,” Mock said of the range.
According to a projection obtained by the Sun-Times, the top of the peak could see 150 deaths a day. But during that peak period, the daily range of fatalities could fluctuate anywhere from 50 to 150. […]
Another graph Pritzker plans to show will estimate that the death rate would go up ten times if the stay at home order was lifted Friday – a little less than a week before the scheduled April 30 expiration.
The model shows deaths in the state slowly flattening into August.
* I asked the governor’s office about the article’s focus on death rates because it’s a lagging indicator of about 3-4 weeks and because the governor has said he’s looking at a wide range of things, including hospitalization, case numbers, etc. I told subscribers the response, but I think it’s important to make that public to prevent confusion…
You are correct that deaths are lagging behind infections, but we don’t have enough testing right now to have a good sense of the true infection rate, so you have the option of choosing a lagging but reliable indicator, or a current but unreliable indicator. Like the governor has said, a model is just one tool he looks at.
Also, like the Sun-Times story mentions and like the governor has said, models are constantly changing when you put new data into them. This model has changed, changes, and will change every day as we put new data into it. The state could see the ‘peak’ within a span of time from now through May and then we could continue on that peak, which will probably be more of a plateau for a period before we see the decline.
More than 4.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to the Labor Department, a signal that the tidal wave of job losses continues to grow during the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s the fifth-straight week that job losses were measured in the millions. From March 15 to April 18, 26.5 million have probably been laid off or furloughed. The number of jobs lost in that brief span effectively erased all jobs created after the 2008 financial crisis. Jobless figures on this scale haven’t been seen since the Great Depression.
The new weekly total comes on top of 22 million Americans who had sought benefits in previous weeks, a volume that has overwhelmed state systems for processing unemployment claims. Economists estimate that the national unemployment rate sits between 15 and 20 percent, much higher than it was during the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009. The unemployment rate at the peak of the Great Depression was about 25 percent.
The new weekly jobless claims figure came around economist predictions, which were expected “to be staggering, but not growing, which is a small mercy,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter. For comparison, 5.2 million people filed unemployment claims for the week ending April 11.
While weekly numbers keep decreasing, Illinois residents continue to file for unemployment benefits at record-high numbers due to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Illinois residents filed 102,736 claims for unemployment benefits last week, according to preliminary numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor. That’s an about 27% decrease from the revised total of 141,160 for the week ending April 11, according to Illinois Department of Employment Security numbers on April 16.
Illinois received more than 757,000 initial unemployment claims from March 1 to April 18, according to state data. That’s more than the total number of initial claims for all of 2019 – which was more than 476,000 – and more than four times the amount of claims filed in the first two months of the 2008 Great Recession, per the state data.
* Keep in mind that Germany has done a much better job than the US at containing the virus…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "Nobody likes to hear this but it is the truth. We are not living through the final phase of this crisis, we are still at its beginning. We will still have to live with this virus for a long time.” pic.twitter.com/BCbbrdZxT3
