19 Comments - Grandson of Man - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 7:07 am: “And the local sheriff and local politicians have publicly encouraged businesses to defy the state’s orders.” Are these Trump’s “law and order” supporters? They’re about as honest as the “pro-life” people who refuse to mitigate COVID spread. - Anon221 - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 8:29 am: Even before the US Supreme Court takes up the ACA case after the general election, many citizens of the US are showing that it’s OK to ration healthcare, to create pre-existing conditions, and to limit access to rehabilitation centers. Hospitals around the country are having to prioritize care as COVID-19 cases, both mild and deadly, flood into the system. Some patients may need only in and out care through the ER, others several days to weeks or months on a floor or in the ICU, and others will leave family members behind when they die from this disease. Those that recover and need to rehabilitate in order to go home now have very limited options. Most nursing/rehab centers have closed their doors to new patients to protect the residents they are already caring for. This country is also opening up new employment “opportunities” in the healthcare field as techs, nurses, and doctors leave the profession they love because of burnout, debilitating illness from COVID-19, or when they themselves die. So We the People are actually doing the work of Congress, the Courts, and the Executive Branch in dismantling our healthcare system one non-mask wearing event at a time standing shoulder to shoulder raging against “the system”. - Zim - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 8:39 am: I don’t see any other way to explain the difference other than Champaign County has a population that on the whole has a higher level of educational attainment than much of the rest of the state. In a college town, people are clearly more likely to take the science and the advice of domain experts seriously. I think that’s evident looking at Champaign County’s 7-day positivity rate with the UIUC tests removed. While it has been on the increase, it is still lower than just about everywhere else. It was at 4.8% yesterday per the News-Gazette. - Datum - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 9:09 am: Zim-it also is just as likely that the high international student/faculty population at UIUC were circulating the virus back in November/December (virus tagged to November 15 in China, December in Europe/New York), leading to a higher rate of infection early before we really started testing for it starting January 22. I’ve heard that one of the earliest clusters in the state started in the UIUC region. So it wouldn’t be surprising at all if it wasn’t intelligence but simply that they are farther past the first flush of spread and got to steady-state before other counties have. - DuPage Dave - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 9:24 am: I think we need to acknowledge the impact of the presidential race on this topic in Illinois. The “redder” the county, the more likely it has active opposition to implementing public health measures, following the lead of the non-masker-in-chief. Given the emotions surrounding the election I don’t think Illinois can hope for better compliance any time soon. Even here in purple-to-blue DuPage county, some restaurants are in open revolt to the mitigation efforts. Sad to see but not unexpected. The idea that “they can’t tell me what to do” never really goes away. - The Ford Lawyer - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 9:33 am: Dave, I think you nailed it. Somebody, SOMEBODY, decided to politicize this virus to save his own ample derriere. Now all of his fans treat this as a political issue instead of a medical one. That worked for a while because the red counties are also very rural counties and did not have a lot of contact with the places where the virus first took hold. Now it has reached them, and because, for political reasons, they are not taking precautions, it is spreading. Badly. One outbreak and you have a public health disaster in a small county. - JS Mill - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 9:39 am: =Somebody, SOMEBODY, decided to politicize this virus= Yep. - The Way I See It - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 10:27 am: The overlap between the folks defying shutdown and orders and the law-n-order folks is likely substantial, proving that the love of law-n-order is more about having weight of authority used against someone other than yourself. - Michael Feltes - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 10:31 am: > Zim-it also is just as likely that the high international student/faculty population at UIUC were circulating the virus back in November/December (virus tagged to November 15 in China, December in Europe/New York), leading to a higher rate of infection early before we really started testing for it starting January 22. That’s just not how any of this works. Even if your theory is accurate and people in C-U were exposed to SARS-CoV-2 relatively early, that would only affect the current infection rates if that early exposure had gotten us to herd immunity. There’s no reason to think that even 10% of the population has contracted the virus and gained immunity, much less 50%-60% (and note here we’re entirely putting aside the question of how long immunity lasts, we need a lot more data for that), such that transmission chains are being interrupted by people who’ve already gotten sick. Just for the record, I grew up in Decatur. The international students & faculty are a big reason why Champaign-Urbana is such a pleasant place to live. Damn it, now I want Chinese food from Golden Harbor and it’s 10:30 in the morning. - Theshow - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 10:51 am: In Libertyville’s case, they are to a large extent a victim of the region map. Lake county’s metrics (6% positivity) are under the IDPH threshold for closure. Unfortunately for them, they are lumped in with McHenry county which is on fire (11.8% positivity). A similar scenario is occurring on the north side of region 10. Villages like Wilmette, Winnetka, Northfield, have daily positivity rates under 3% but their restaurants are shuttered because people in Des Plaines, Elgin, Melrose Park, Bedford Park and Cicero can’t get it together. Resources are thin, but if this is going to drag out much longer, the IDPH needs to start moving to a more granular, data driven, approach to closures or granting municipal exceptions based on the numbers. The Libertyville Mayor could make a better argument if he cited the data and IDPH’s criteria as well. - OK Boomer - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 10:56 am: The use of surveillance screening at UI-UC is surely having an impact on the rate of COVID-19 in the county. Testing is the key to getting out of the COVID-19 nightmare. There needs to be a rapid test that is widely deployed to the public so that those who are infectious can be identified and pulled out of circulation before they can infect others. UI-UC is a microcosm that is demonstrating how effective that strategy can be. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 10:58 am: === Testing is the key=== It’s an important part, no doubt. But it’s meaningless if people just go out willy nilly without a care in the world. - Pundent - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 11:10 am: =the IDPH needs to start moving to a more granular, data driven, approach to closures or granting municipal exceptions based on the numbers.= People have cars. What’s to stop them from driving to the next town or even county over? Instead of trying to thread the needle on which restaurants are open or closed maybe we should work to lower the rate of community spread? We’ve already seen the challenges that exist in areas that border other states. The same lessons should apply to our cities and counties. - cermak_rd - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 11:12 am: Theshow, but look at the communities you named that are doing poorly, Cicero, Elgin, you didn’t name it but probably Berwyn, Bellwood etc. These are low income communities. Do we really want a system that mitigates low income communities while not mitigating high income communities? Yes, high income communities will do better at virus prevention. They are more likely to have people who can work from home and not have to use shared facilities like laundromats. - Mr. Smith - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 11:16 am: I live in Champaign, and I am VERY thankful for Julie Pryde and her staff. I am also thankful that I don’t live in an area of the statewhere the politization of a public health crisis threatens people’s lives every day. I understand that this crisis is really hard on a lot of people, and the economic effects are tragic. But it’s also tragic that people are dying from this and that some folks are just fine with that as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them significantly. - Theshow - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 11:46 am: ==Do we really want a system that mitigates low income communities while not mitigating high income communities?== I’d hope that we all want a data driven system that maximizes economic activity while minimizing health risk in all communities based on the data and the science. - Retired and Still in Illinois - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 11:49 am: Mr Smith….I suggest you change the last word of your post to…at all. - Westender - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 12:17 pm: Imagine being in Whiteside County (same region as Winnebago.) Constantly listed in NYTimes as most impacted in Country, 13.8% positivity with the hospitals and Dr’s pleading with people to listen. With a Health Department and States Attorney that are taking the position the rules are not enforceable. We have bars literally having Halloween parties this weekend, and yesterday we had 75 new cases and two deaths. It is mind boggling how this can continue. I wish we had leaders like Dr. Martell and Julie Pryde leading our fight. They are showing leadership and putting health and lives over popularity and politics. - Lynn S. - Thursday, Oct 29, 20 @ 10:36 pm: Another Chambana person here: The stay at home order started over spring break, and these towns shut down hard. I don’t think more than 10 establishments were open past midnight. When the preliminary evidence for masks started coming out in April, I would guess at least 50-60% of the folks here started wearing them. My observation is that African-Americans wore masks at higher rates than whites. When the mandatory mask order came out in May, I would guess compliance here was just over 90%. Compliance grew over the summer, and I would say we’re at 99% now. (A few holdouts.) We’ve been seeing the pay-off for being so conscientious: we aren’t getting sick as quickly as everyone else, and we aren’t dying as quickly as others. I was exposed (accidentally, by a young co-worker) for an hour in an enclosed space a few weeks ago, and I partially attribute my negative tests to proper mask-wearing. (The rest of the credit I give to “Jesus loves me”.) Some nice young grad students should be collecting information on mask wearing in Champaign County versus the rest of region 6, and how rates of illness and death compare. My suspicion is that there will be a decently high correlation between percentage of population wearing masks and low rates of illness and death. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.