* This has become a focal point of people like Reps. Darren Bailey and John Cabello and others on the right who are looking for a way to undermine the stay at home order…
[Woodford County State’s Attorney Greg Minger] calls the state ambiguous in its approach to the coronavirus. Despite the governor’s order, he points to the Illinois Department of Public Health’s 2014 Illinois Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response Plan. He points to a brief section of the document that states, “Quarantine (a period of isolation to prevent disease spread) is not effective in controlling multiple influenza outbreaks in large, immunologically naïve populations, because the disease spreads too rapidly to identify and to control chains of transmission. Even if quarantine were somewhat effective in controlling influenza in large populations, it would not be feasible to implement and enforce with available resources, and would damage the economy by reducing the workforce.”
To the Journal Star, Minger acknowledged that a quarantine — defined by the state plan as involving people “believed to have been exposed to infection, for the purpose of preventing transmission of diseases” — differs from the stay-at-home order. However, from a public-health standpoint, he says the two approaches are essentially identical.
That 2014 document is here.
* The attorney for Reps. Bailey and Cabello also referenced the document in an interview with Rebecca Anzel at Capitol News Illinois as the reason for re-filing Bailey’s lawsuit…
The document he is referring to is guidance from the governor’s office and Illinois Department of Public Health detailing how stay-at-home restrictions are to be enforced.
“If you do not adhere to these Executive Orders, the Illinois Department of Public Health and Certified Local Health Departments have the authority” to require residents and businesses to comply, and it cites the statute creating the department.
According to law, if public health officials believe a person is a “danger to the public health,” they may quarantine or isolate that person “to prevent the probable spread of a dangerously contagious or infectious disease.”
That cannot be implemented, though, without the resident’s consent or a court order issued within 48 hours. The burden of proof to get a judge to sign off is significant — among other things, the department would need to prove that the community’s health is “significantly endangered” by the person it seeks to quarantine.
Those rules also apply to businesses the IDPH might seek to close due to health concerns.
“Local health departments got that letter,” DeVore said. “Why did our citizens not get this letter advising them of their rights to due process?”
Um, maybe take it up with your local public health department?
…Adding… Crain’s…
Bailey said the additional lawsuits are “just more proof” that the governor’s actions were unconstitutional.
“You can’t just let businesses sit in quarantine without due process,” he said.
The Xenia representative clarified that he’s not interested in turning over the executive order statewide. Rather, he thinks the decision to reopen should be made by county health departments.
“Never have I suggested that we need to open the whole state up,” he said. “We should obey the law, but let local health departments make decisions based on what’s going on in their areas.”
* Phil Luciano got some clarification from IDPH…
However, the IDPH says there are key differences. For one, the 2014 plan “is specific to pandemic influenza, not pandemic coronavirus,” the department said in a statement to the Journal Star.
Further, according to the statement, “If you read through the larger document referenced, you will see that quarantine is just one of the many tools available to public health officials in preparation, response, and recovery from pandemic influenza. The stay-at-home order is not a quarantine.”
- TheInvisibleMan - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 10:13 am:
===Why did our citizens not get this letter advising them of their rights to due process===
This is the big piece of new information Bailey is depending on in amending his lawsuit?
I don’t even know where to start.
Is censure an option?
- efudd - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 10:19 am:
If you think what the state of Illinois, Pritzker, IDPH, etc. has done to date is a quarantine, you’ve obviously have never been quarantined.
- Tuco - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 10:26 am:
Guess I will be going to Indiana for a haircut
- Anon221 - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 10:40 am:
2014 Plan? Did they just Google and go to this site( which, by the way Pritzker Administration, needs to be updated. Still has Rauner listed)
http://www.idph.state.il.us/pandemic_flu/planning.htm
Here’s the current plan-
https://dph.illinois.gov/sites/default/files/publications/illinois-pandemic-influenza-plan-version-51march-2020.pdf
- Lynn S. - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 10:44 am:
I live in a county where the health department had to go to court a few years back, to seek a quarantine order. (I believe the person who was quarantined had TB, and was refusing their medication and leaving their house.)
The local newspaper did an article on all the things that quarantine would bring upon this person.
We don’t have health department people coming to our houses twice a day, plus unannounced visits at the health department’s discretion.
We aren’t subjected to being arrested and jailed if we step out of our house.
We can have people over,or chat over the fence with our neighbors.
These conditions are not in the stay-at-home order.
Bailey should be censured by the House. DeVore, Breen and the judge should be disbarred.
At some point, there has to be a significant punishment for being stupid and reckless.
I just can’t figure out what to do with the people who keep falling for the quackery these people espouse. I guess I’ll have to settle for watching Trump voters fall into population and economic decline.
I’ll just do everything I can to assist in the development of the declines.
- Ok - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 10:56 am:
“large, immunologically naïve populations”
You got that right…
- RNUG - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 11:22 am:
== However, the IDPH says there are key differences. For one, the 2014 plan “is specific to pandemic influenza, not pandemic coronavirus,” the department said in a statement to the Journal Star. ==
Tomato, Tomahto … bureaucratic nitpicking. A pandemic disease is a pandemic disease.
- Practical Politics - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 11:24 am:
“Bailey should be censured by the House.”
That would require the General Assembly to actually convene a meeting wouldn’t it?
- DownSouth - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 11:42 am:
So, using Baliey’s logic this should be a county level decision. (and I am not a fan of “whataboutisms” ) but let’s use Randolph County and GML situation. Gilster is huge economic engine in Randolph county so yes let’s them and the rest of the county open unfettered. The problem with that scenario? The workforce that lives and travels to and from surrounding counties. How would a situation like that even begin to work on county by county basis? Makes my head hurt even thinking about it.
- Roadrager - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 12:06 pm:
The logic is simple.
The federal government says the states should be in charge of the response.
The people who like that idea, but don’t like how their state in particular is responding, then say the decisions should be pushed down to counties.
If the counties don’t behave in the manner they like, these same people will then argue that the real decision making should be left to the municipalities.
If you dig down that far, you can then complain to the municipalities that the decision can be left to individual business owners, and ideally, everyone will just give up and no one will know what the rules are or how to follow them.
And when the hospitals and morgues start overfilling and the economy hits a full collapse, these people can stand proudly and say, “See, I told you, government just doesn’t work.”
- Lynn S. - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 12:10 pm:
@Down South,
In your question, what each county health department decides would be valid in that county.
If pandemic regulation was to devolve down to the county level, I think the Darren Baileys of Southern Illinois would find themselves living under regulations similar to what we have now, and possibly even more rigorous.
And then what would they do? If they try suing their local health department, their own local tax dollars would be spent on the county health department’s lawyers.
Willing to bet $2 they hadn’t thought of that…
- Mary - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 12:26 pm:
The ’stay-at-home’ order really isn’t anything at all. I can leave my house whenever I like. I can go and hike and drive and shop and visit. I can buy food out and eat it in a park, conversing with people at the same time. It’s mere window dressing. I can go to a friend’s house and watch a movie. I don’t get all the fuss over something so ‘toothless’.
- Lynn S. - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 1:09 pm:
@ Mary,
Because, “Murrica (banned punctuation)”
Those folks can’t tell me what to do (banned punctuation). The Constitution says whatever I want it to say, or what Fox News tells me it means.” /S
The fact that Pritzker is a liberal? “Gotta own the libs.”
The fact that Pritzker is a Democrat? “The Democrats are pinko Communist Socialists. They hate God, Mom, apple pie, library, freedom, guns, capitalism…(insert whatever “evil” Fox News is propagandizing about that day)”
The fact that Pritzker is from Chicago? “She-caw-go steals all our votes and tax dollars, and imposes its pinko liberal Communist Socialism on the rest of us, who fear God and honor the federal and state constitutions, plus the Declaration of Independence.”
If we could really get in their heads and see the miasma that is (allegedly) their brains, I think we’d find out that a fairly large chunk are motivated by anti-Semitism. And don’t try telling them that Jesus was a Jew. Jeezus has fair skin, blond hair, blue eyes, and means whatever corrupt theology my pastor spouts out 2-3 times a week.
And you wonder why I avoid certain family members…
- Lynn S. - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 6:18 pm:
Libraries? Liberals area against libraries? But I love my local library.
- RNUG - Monday, May 4, 20 @ 8:54 pm:
== Now you’re just rubbing it in…
==
LOL. If I wanted to rub it in, I would mention the Springfield drive-in is about 10 minutes away … maybe 15 minutes for Rich