* Gov. Pritzker began today by talking about some new modeling. The Sun-Times has a story out about this and you can read some excerpts here. On to the governor…

So far we are not seeing significant declines in key metrics like hospitalization. Updates to our models reflect that data, compared to the forecasts that I shared with you on April 23, which predicted peaking between the late April and early May. That timeframe of plateauing near a peak has been expanded from mid May into mid June. On April 23, which predicted peaking between the late April and early May, that timeframe of plateauing near a peak has been expanded from mid May into mid June.

In many ways, this news is, disheartening.

We have made great progress, but it’s forced us remain at a moderated though still high level of key metrics for this extended period. Pushing out of our estimated peak is a natural consequence of flattening the curve. Remember, no one can truly stop this virus without a vaccine.

What we’ve been aiming to do since early March is slow down the exponential rate of transmission. We do that, it leads to a slower rate of infections over a longer period of time, giving our healthcare system ability to treat those who have complications, giving our pharmaceutical researchers and to develop effective treatments, potentially a vaccine to the peak down and therefore to a longer timeframe might not sound like good news to some, but I promise you, is saving lives.

Remember to pardon all transcription errors.

* He then said that the R Naught value for Illinois is 1…

Once we get down to an R naught value below 1, that will be very good news.

* Regions…

Thus far, all of our regions are on pace, they hit all of the metrics for moving forward after the 28 day period with possibly one exception. The Northeast region. The positivity rate as of midnight on May 8 is at 22.3%, which is of course higher than the 20% cap this metric [needs] to move into the next phase. Positivity rate cap will be measured over a 14 day period. So there’s time for the Northeast region to fall below this.

For what positivity looks like in the other regions, the North Central Region is sitting at 9.1%, central region at 6.0%. The southern region is at 10.5%.

* From a press release…

All four of the regions are meeting many of the key metrics, with three of the four on pace to meet all of the Restore Illinois reopening metrics to move forward after the 28-day period: North-Central, Central and Southern.

As of midnight, May 8, the Northeast region’s positivity rate is at 22.3 percent, higher than the 20 percent cap on this metric to move into the next phase. The North-Central region is at 9.1 percent, the Central region at 6.0 percent, and the Southern region at 10.5 percent.

All of the regions have seen a dip in hospitalizations since May 1st: 18.6 percent decrease in the Northeast region, 35.8 percent decrease in the North-Central region, 44.4 percent decrease in the Central region, and 54.3 percent decrease in the Southern region.

A requirement to move forward to next phase is that a region sees no overall increase, rather stability or a decrease, in hospital admissions for COVID-like illness across a 28-day period.

As of midnight May 8, all four regions met the third requirement of available surge capacity of at least 14 percent for ICU beds, medical/surgical beds, and ventilators.

* On to questions for the governor. First of all, can we talk about your senior staff or could you give us some more information? How long have you known that the person tested positive how long do you expect to be working from home?…

We’re going to follow the doctor’s orders here. We’ve discovered a person who tested positive late in the week in fact I think that we were notified on Saturday. So, the test had been done a few days earlier in the week. That was when we discovered. And it’s slightly different lengths of time, but people depending upon their contact the person how recent that contact was etc.

* And do you plan to identify who the person is for those of us who might have been in the Thompson center, who wonder as well, should we be tested?…

No, we don’t want to reveal the name of the person who tested positive, that would be a breach of their privacy. However, they have given us all of their contacts or locations, they were in. They were not in the Blue Room at any time for any of the conferences. And so there’s no reason that you or any of the press would have been exposed to that person.

* How close in contact are you to that person?…

They work on the same floor down the hall, like, know how many feet but by the number of feet down the hall from me. I don’t have regular every day contact with that person directly, although that person would sometimes would every day sit in a large meeting room where we were all socially distancing. And so, you know, out of an abundance of caution I think we all that because that person is there every day and they interact with no other members of the staff on a regular basis and me on a slightly irregular basis that we wanted to make sure that we followed all the rules for socially distancing and, and in particular to isolate this person.

* This person works in a public job. It is different than working in a private company. The White House has released the names of the two people who would have tested positive. Would you not want to be as transparent as the White House?…

This is not a public person. And again, This person you know we’ve identified all this person’s contacts and just like the contact tracing protocols, a call for that there’s no release of the name of the person who was found to have COVID-19, but all of their contacts are notified that person had COVID-19 and what the options are for self isolating getting testing etc.

* How is that person feeling?…

Thank you. I was in contact with that person today. That person is still asymptomatic. And so feeling fine although obviously it’s, it’s, you know, an anxious written moment for that person just to know that they’ve tested positive.

* Some are asking, are you, where are you right now, are you in Chicago?…

I’m in Chicago I have been in Chicago for 60… I don’t know for quite a while. 60-some days and, and I’m at my home. Thank you.

* Even though you are feeling healthy does this incident make you consider about putting a succession plan in order, should you come down with COVID-19 and the Lieutenant Governor needs to step in?…

The succession plan is in fact in the Constitution. And as you know, we have a terrific lieutenant governor highly capable person who, if she needed to step in we would of course be terrific at managing everything. But, you know, but I feel fine and I have tested negative and so I don’t think at least at the moment that there’s any real danger.

* Today, the still persistent questions about the unemployment. I know that those filing and those who are freelancers and contract workers. Finally are able to get online and I would be remiss if I didn’t name all of the reporters who have asked me a question at least five have asked me to ask you, are still problems freelancers are not impressed at all with adding staff. It’s asking for driver’s license. Some people their driver’s license has expired. During this time, there are persistent problems even today…

Well let’s start with that. There have been 44,000 successful connections online for people who wanted to file today.

And those people have been able to connect their applications, many of them have been submitted their, the you know the challenges that exist for people who have an expired license, I can’t speak to the expiration of their license except that the Secretary of State has extended the expiration of licenses for everybody that whose license expired during this period so they shouldn’t worry about that. I think a bigger challenge is, we had some glitches again with phone calls today. The entire system for the state of Illinois actually had some interruption today. And so that went down, I believe it’s back up again. But other than that, the on the first day of launch of this new system, the number of people who’ve been able to successfully file, my understanding has been quite large.

* Today, House Minority Leader Durkin as well as Bill Brady sent a letter, and they’re saying and they’re asking again to reconsider your extension. They feel the 28 days is just too long, and would you possibly consider a 14 day measurement instead of the day that they announced it?…

Just to give you some perspective that we announced the restore Illinois, the metrics was actually the sixth of May, I believe, we were already six days into the 28 days so there were, I think 22 days left. If I’m wrong I’m off by one day.

But so the difference between 22 days and 14 days, we can have a discussion about certainly, but the effort here is the same I think. We all have the same goal, which is to get people back to work, but to do it safely. And remember that the 14 day guidance that was put out by the White House is actually more stringent than the guidance that we put out, guidance would have required 14 days of a decline. And what we require is simply following a flattened number for 28 days, which is a much easier metric, considering everything I’ve just told you in today’s update.

* At the same time, other places like even New York and New York is ground zero, Governor of New York today is going to start reopening on Friday, Massachusetts is going to start reopening on Monday. And yet we don’t hear in Illinois, a date, which has so many so anxious, whether or not that date is June one for some movement or not. Are you able to consider tweaking your plan?…

I think the earliest day would be the 29th of May, so rather than in June, but it’s the 29th of May. And we’re not looking so much at the tweaking of the plan, I think what we, remember that we did in fact open things up on May 1, we brought back retail, again curbside and delivery, retail, as well as making sure that we opened our state parks the, you know, and we’ve opened now our elective surgeries. So all of those things which you’re now identifying, those are things that are in other states plans that are just beginning now. We actually did about 10 days ago.

* We are glad you are taking the proper precautions, is anyone else in your family under a self-quarantining?…

We are following all the doctor’s orders here at home. So we have been really self isolating in my home anyway for some time now. So that’s, you know, we’re trying to follow all the best protocols and to keep each other safe.

* A Quincy bar and grill reopened this morning and other businesses say they plan to also do so by the end of the week. Seeing Adams County officials including law enforcement have stated they don’t plan to enforce your stay at homework, how are you going to allow these businesses?…

As I’ve said all along, people who open their businesses at this time, knowing that the mitigations are just now beginning to bend, you know, help us bend the curve down, we flattened it but the goal here is to bend the curve down. But ultimately that by opening early, they’re putting people at risk, and the potential here is that we’ll have an upsurge in Quincy of cases and hospitalizations and that will drive that whole region potentially to a point where it may not reopen. I think they’re putting people at risk and they’re putting the entire region’s economy at risk by opening early.

* What about restaurants that have been trying to open, you’ve been in discussions at all about perhaps opening before phase four?…

Certainly we’ve talked to staff people, our staff people rather have talked to leaders in the restaurant industry. I have been in contact with people in the restaurant industry and our goal, again, is to try to open everything in a reasonable amount of time as fast as possible while keeping people safe. And they’ve suggested in the restaurant industry leaders like Sam Toia, in which they want to do that. But it’s true that it is difficult. Open restaurants and bars in a circumstance in which to in phase three make sure that there aren’t groups of 10, or more than 10 gathering and making sure that we’re limiting the transmission, that can occur with the service of food and drinks.

* So you might consider before phase four is that what I’m hearing?…

No, I mean we put our plan out there. Look, let me rephrase that, change along the way here’s the biggest thing to change is if we get a treament. That’s the thing that will change the game and I’ve said all along that will alter the playbook if we need to.

The fact is that we put a plan out there really nothing has changed since we put the plan out there. So, no the intention here is to stick with the plan but it is true that I’m talking to people in various industries and listening to their ideas, most especially for when things open.

And then he was asked about premix cocktails.

Another question was asked about nursing homes that’s been answered a dozen times.

* If asymptomatic people spreading COVID-19 is a concern, this is from Greg Bishop, is IDOC performing these tests on inmates being released from prison. If not, why not?…

Well, IDOC is performing tests on staff on a regular basis and anybody that’s got any symptoms. And then, as people are being released they go through a process over a number of days before they actually are released. And so, again, they would likely show symptoms during the course of that process it’s known who’s being released for days in fact weeks before they are released so you know there’s not a go test every single one.

* What about contact tracing. What are the city requirements. This is from Univision, would you need any of these college certifications that are popping up, and how to folks apply to be contact tracers?…

People will be trained for free as part of the contact tracing program that we’re going to be, that we’re spinning up. And so it’s not that certain for people to pay for a program. If they get hired as a contact tracer, you get hired not based upon having a credential as a contact tracer, though we will be hiring healthcare workers. There are people who are community health care workers who have some of the training that’s already required. So those folks will be among the first that get brought in, along with the many people who are already doing contact tracing all over the state.

* And now I know I feel rather foolish asking this next question on such a more important note but I have been given this question from several people, Governor. Have you gotten a haircut. I know it seems like silly but so many folks would like to go get a haircut themselves, and they’ve noticed that you appear to have gotten a haircut, who did the haircut. Where did you go to get it…

No, I have a pair of clippers that I use that I’ve been using on the sides of my head. I asked my 15 year old to give me a little buzz on the back of my hair and that’s it. I haven’t had a haircut other than that, but I’m glad that people think that it looks like I had a haircut.

* Multiple churches in Chicago held services over the weekend. What would you say to parishioners and pastors who are gathering for services despite the stay at home order?…

You’re likely not only breaking the law and the mayor has made it clear that those services are not allowed, also, you’re potentially putting hundreds of people in danger. And that’s something that I think people should be thinking about. The parishioners and the faith leaders are conducting those services that don’t test about yourself it’s about all the many people. And even more importantly the many people will be come in contact with the people who attended those services, because we just talked about asymptomatic COVID-19. And so it’s it’s highly likely in fact that when the large groups of people are getting together right now, given that there isn’t enough manage across the country to manage, you know, large crowds to know that people that you’re with don’t have COVID-19. You know there are going to be carriers when getting together. So, just for people that while they’re carrying out their faith and that they believe in most which I hope include caring for your fellow human beings that they’ll take into account that caring for your fellow human beings in keeping them safe.

* Black Illinois hair stylists and barbers have been struggling without unemployment for weeks. And now stylists are going back to work in nearby states like Indiana. Is there any way Illinois could provide relief for stylists or allow them to safely reopen sooner here?…

As of today, independent contractors, small sole proprietors can apply for unemployment, under the CARES Act, and through the portal. It’s been provided at the Illinois Department of Employment Security. And of course, in phase three which as I spoke about many of the regions are headed toward the moving into phase three barbers and salons will be able to open back up.

* The Sun-Times reported Sunday that recent nursing home deaths in Cook County are concentrated in the poorest rated facilities. Do you have any plans to move residents out of those places? How about putting them in underused field hospitals, like the one the Cook County Commissioners suggested?…

I think I’d like to turn it over to Dr. Ezike from the Department of Public Health which oversees nursing homes. But I’ll just begin by saying that those alternate care facilities are really intended to be for transfers from hospitals, people who are less acute cases. And so that that was really what the purpose of those alternate care facilities was and it’s the best use of doctors.

Dr. Ezike: We want to reinforce the appropriate guidelines report enforce the appropriate infection control measures sure that these staff requirements for testing pre shift assessments. Those are consistent. Please remember that when you’re dealing with this fragile elderly population maybe many with maybe dementia or memory care issues repositioning them to an entirely different places is very unsettling and destabilizing and actually could potentially do more harm than good so. Ideally, we’d like to keep people in in the home that they know, that they’re comfortable with and be able to strengthen any deficiencies that are identified that that place can provide the appropriate care in the appropriate manner with the appropriate PPE and the appropriate staffing.

* Is it time to revisit restore Illinois plan and tweak it to include the regional concerns of the IML? Are you open to those ideas, are you prepared to stick by your plan, bear the responsibility, whether it succeeds or fails, without sharing it with the legislature?…

Lot of judgment in the last half of that question, but I just received a letter an hour ago from the Illinois Municipal League and understand that they would like to break the state into 11 regions, not just 4 regions. And I know there are other people who would like to break the state into every county, 102 counties and yet others like to do it by city or by town. And I’ll just say that there are lots of ways that it could be done, but there needs to be a uniformity to the way that we manage the state of Illinois. We’ve broken the state up into four regions, allowing each one of them with the same set of metrics to perhaps be faster to move into another phase than another. And so that’s why we put the plan forward as it is, as I say, as circumstances change as we find, for example, that there are fewer COVID-19 symptoms that are affecting people, because there might be a treatment available, we will of course, re-visit Restore Illinois. The goal here is to as I say reopen the state as fast as possible. But, in a safe fashion that saves as many lives as [possible].

* If Germany faltered on reopening when it’s R Naught value [was at] 0.7, how can Illinois be sure that not there won’t just rise again this summer?…

Dr. Ezike: We can’t assure that it won’t rise again this summer, and that is obviously the concern and that’s why we want to slowly and cautiously, be able to follow the data and move through these stages, to be able to properly assess how the changes that we make at each stage actually affect obviously the mobility of our residents which obviously affects the effective R, if people have been strictly at home, and then now they’re out and about a little bit. Obviously, the effective R or the I know that you’re referring to is not going to be the same and so being able to watch the effects of each of our changes is an important part of the evaluation as we move through these stages, so that hopefully we can catch before we get too far in the wrong direction. If some of the loosening has been too fast, and has resulted in, you know, strong spikes or peaks that we don’t want to see.

* How many times have you been tested for COVID-19, and with the governor’s office self isolating and working from home, how does that arrangement affect the administration’s ability to manage the current situation?…

Let me start with the fact that many of our staff people already were working from home. We tried to make sure that we did enough social distancing, allowing those particularly those who are most vulnerable, continue to do their jobs from home. The Illinois department of innovation, technology, did a terrific job of creating the opportunity for so many state employees to work from home. And so we took advantage of that by allowing much of our staff to work.

I think they’re doing a terrific job, they are there on the calls every day, they’re in touch with, all day long, working on projects throughout the day, getting things done.

The functions of the governor’s office have really been operating well, even with a smaller group of people working in the Thompson center or in Springfield. But now that we’ve moved the remaining 20 or so plus people out of the office for isolation, we’ve been in contact all day today, making sure that we’re following all the things that we need to follow each day, and getting things done. We’ve got to make sure that we’re moving swapped over eight locations across the state. You got to make sure that we’re continuing to build up our capability to do testing. The contact tracing effort is also spinning up. You know we have a number of things that are really swirling about and we’re all doing those, again, all day today we’ve been working on it, even yesterday.

I was tested earlier in the week. Last week, the others in our office when the whole office was tested. Those who are working in the office that is. And then, when there was the discovery of the one person.

There was a desire to have me tested again just in the wake of that, since enough days had gone by, of interaction with that person and so I was tested again yesterday. I think that I actually did the swab early in the morning of the test came back four hours later, I believe and it tested negative.

* There are signs that legislators want to see action on a bill to somehow delay or give a break to people on paying their property taxes this year, perhaps waiving fees and interest. If you still consider that a strictly local matter, given that the deferred income taxes by three months?…

Well, we certainly need to consider everything that we can to alleviate the burden on people across the state so anything that we can do is worth considering. Obviously there are pros and cons to each one of these things. When you decide, for example, to not collect property taxes, you’re affecting local governments and their ability to deliver services. But of course, I know that there are people that are struggling perhaps to pay their property taxes. So, I think all that should be considered by the legislature, and I’m hopeful that the legislature will be in session soon so that they can consider that, something that I would consider.

* Do you believe the legislature must assemble in some form before July 1 to pass a budget. Are you prepared to go without one like Bruce Rauner?…

I think you know I’m nothing like Bruce Rauner and don’t believe much in what he was doing. But I do believe that the legislature should get together and convene, so that a budget can be passed. There are a number of other vital things, it’s a short list of things that are absolutely necessary. From my perspective, a budget is one of those things.

* State Board of Education last week that districts should develop plans for virtual summer school, and that summer school won’t occur in person. Toggle notify parents Friday is the state planning on expanding funding available for summer schools or should districts then use their emergency care tax funds, you determine how you plan to use the emergency funding that governors are receiving directly for schools, and if so, is summer school on the table?…

Certainly a lot is being invested through the carriage act directly with schools for eLearning and other summer programs but the same thing is also true through the governor’s office, that is to say the cares Act provides for the governor’s office to do so. And we are focusing much of that on E learning and also on making sure that we’re dealing with kind of potential of a loss of learning over the summer.

So those are all things that we’re considering and as you look at the restore Illinois plan, you know obviously in a phase three when, still we can’t have gatherings of more than 10 people, it would be very difficult to have in person summer school, though, possible in very small groups, but not likely in many places. So it would have to really be in phase four. And that also could occur in the middle of the summer.

* Amanda Vinicky at WTTW would like you to comment on the breaking news of the Illinois Supreme Court will not take up the AG’s request to weigh in on your authority, regarding successive orders during emergencies…

It’s an unusual circumstance that the Supreme Court would in fact take a case directly from circuit court and not let it go through the normal process. But I think it was the right thing to do for the AG to seek the Supreme Court’s intervention. But the Supreme Court is not saying they’re not going to rule on this ever. They’re just saying that they don’t want to skip over the appellate court, I understand.

* Illinois has COVID-19 data based on age, race and ethnicity, but there is no sort of data on basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Is that something you’re considering?…

It’s not something that’s being asked on the forms that people are submitting, the hospitals are submitting.

Dr. Ezike: It’s not collected on any information on any forms that currently exist. It’s something that we can put towards our advisory committee to see if that’s something we should be looking into, but again there are no forms that request that information.

* Why did no collar county hospitals received [remdesivir] including hard hit areas like Waukegan Joliet and Elgin, please explain more on the detail on the criteria use…

Dr. Ezike: So we do try to do a rank order of hospitals who had participated obviously in COVID care that has the largest number of hospitalizations, ICU admissions. But we also had to try to make sure that it was distributed throughout the state as I mentioned earlier that all restore areas got some drug and we also wanted to make sure that we have included some safety nets and we also wanted to include some hospitals that concentrated had care for communities of color. So using all of those and knowing that there are over 200 hospitals and we only had 240 cases and we weren’t going to open up the cases and start breaking up individual vials for people we had quite a few limitations and came up with really the most equitable data driven strategy that we could. Again we’re hoping to get more and we will definitely take into account people who received previously, when we, when we get the new shipments. Again, I don’t have any information on what those future shipments are coming in.

* Governor, you said on CNN yesterday ‘we think that we can have a massive contact tracing program up in the next few weeks. How is that possible?…

Yeah. Perhaps I didn’t word it quite correctly. What I was trying to say was, we are spinning up a massive contact tracing effort across the state and over the next few weeks that will be launched and it will be a large effort. That it is going to take us, you know some time to hire up and make sure that we’ve got the breadth that we need and all the people that we need

But I also want to say that backing up that a large contact tracing effort that we’re trying to get and running here is the existing contact racing effort that we’ve got really across almost every county in the state. And so we’re plugging in the existing capability, as well as many of the community health care workers. Chicago has hundreds of those already and has suggested that they will be bringing those people into this new larger contact tracing effort. I have confidence that we will have grown this significantly. But yes it’s true that it’s over more than just a few weeks it will take in order for this to become massive. But it is a plan you know when you’re talking about having over 3000 people do contact tracing. And we’re starting with no central organization to do that from when you serve with a plan and and a leader, and you know and and know which direction you’re going, we’re going to go as fast as we can.

* Representative Darin LaHood has recommended the Adams County plan for reopening and downstate and collar counties in the state. Have you looked at that plan and Do you agree with it?…

I have looked at that plan. Indeed I spoke with the mayor of Quincy about that plan and I read that plan that has a lot of really good points in it, some of which I have considered in the process of putting together the Restore Illinois plan. So there’s a lot of overlap. I think the biggest differences, frankly are timing. There are people who want to open everything up sooner, much sooner. I talked a little bit earlier in my remarks about the fact that if we did that we would really have a surge of cases and it could potentially lead to an overwhelming of our hospitals, and many more people getting sick. But, you know, we have a good plan out there. It is a regional plan, and it takes into account that Adams Kennedy is very different than Cook County.

* Will you Governor place a moratorium against creditors that are affecting credit scores negatively and threatening judgment against Illinois who are already facing challenges to sustain their livelihoods during this pandemic?…

You know, it’s an excellent question and I had conversations this morning with an economist about some of the things that we need to be thinking about given the severity of this financial downturn, and its impact on families and individuals and small businesses too, and how we might mitigate those, allowing people to restructure and not have it affect them on a permanent basis the way that sometimes a bad credit rating can. It can affect somebody. So, it is something that’s part of a broader effort that I’m talking to experienced economists about.

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