* Well, we’ve made it to the end of another blog year, and what a year it’s been. I’m so grateful to all subscribers, readers and commenters for hanging in through the absolute craziest times in living history. We all had some dark moments, but the holidays are finally upon us and I hope we can all find some joy, love and happiness to brighten our lives. Peace be with you.
* As is our custom, we will close out the year with three songs for my mom. Suzy Snowflake…
* Nominations for the Wordslinger Golden Horseshoe Award for Best CapitolFax.Com Commenter of 2020 were a bit all over the place, but Oswego Willy’s nomination of OneMan really hit the mark. OneMan was once a blogger’s blogger, but now he posts here and on Twitter (under his real name, which I won’t divulge). I’ve known him for quite a long while. He truly deserves this award…
What’s so incredibly special and important about his comments in our 2020, - OneMan - has been so true to his politics, and honest to the facts applying them. Not once did I read a mental gymnastics to talk politics to his political takes. In an different time, while our politics were (and still are) shades different, his honesty to his politics were unwavering in a political season wanting shading as its base.
To science, - OneMan - was honest to the pandemic, and adding to his comments to this, he added anecdotal importance to thought, not overshadowing or overpowering his factual points. The comments were complete, whole, well-rounded, and always thoughtful to these harrowing times, I made sure I read his thoughts.
To the governing, - OneMan - saw and was plain, no real frills, and that has been great. When it came to the governing during the pandemic, the real and truthful honesty to his thoughts communally stood out. -OneMan - wrote to the real once again, and I found myself rethinking my own thoughts as well.
* Runner-up is Candy Dogood, who started posting here in earnest shortly before we lost Wordslinger. Whenever I read Candy’s stuff I think Wordslinger would’ve enjoyed the banter…
Candy always seems to get to the heart of the issue or discussion. Candy’s responses to other commenters are to the point and factual. Candy doesn’t resort to petty bickering. I’m not a political insider, but to me Candy’s comments are insightful and meaningful to whatever topic is being discussed. I always pay a little extra attention to Candy’s comments.
And the great RNUG receives a very honorable mention.
* So, to recap…
Wordslinger Golden Horseshoe Award for Best CapitolFax.Com Commenter: OneMan
Best Use of Social Media in Illinois Politics: Hannah Meisel
Lifetime Achievement: Kathy Murray
Best Senate Democratic Legislative Assistant/District Office Manager: Jan’et Scott
Best Senate Republican Legislative Assistant/District Office Manager: Shannon Hogan
Best House Democratic Legislative Assistant/District Office Manager: Jessica Genova
Best House Republican Legislative Assistant/District Office Manager: Rachel Tabor
Best Senate Democratic Non-Campaign Staffer: Brandy Renfro
Best Senate Republican Non-Campaign Staffer: (Tie) Jo Johnson and Rachel Bold
Best House Democratic Non-Campaign Staffer: Chris Lowery
Best House Republican Non-Campaign Staffer: Eleni Demertzis
Best House Republican Campaign Staffer: Jayme Odom
Best Senate Republican Campaign Staffer: Brent Ellis
Best House Democratic Campaign Staffer: Tiffany Moy
Best Senate Democratic Campaign Staffer: Nick Gianinni
* One of the very few judicial losses by the Pritzker administration was in early August…
[Logan County] Judge Jonathan C. Wright ruled Monday morning that Pritzker’s order that temporarily halted county jails from moving prisoners to state-run facilities ran afoul of state law.
That decision was overturned a couple weeks later. However, the sheriffs did all they could during that brief window to dump prisoners on the state…
The good news for Illinois’ 102 sheriffs is that they had two weeks to transfer roughly 2,000 inmates to state prisons. The bad news is that they now face the same problem they had before — holding newly-sentenced inmates in county jails who ought to be serving their sentences in prison.
If you recall, several sheriffs packed vans and buses full of unmasked prisoners and literally dumped them at prison doors.
To put the numbers in perspective, there were fewer than 700 known infections of inmates and staff across IDOC from March to early August, when the latest surge began. Since then, the total number of infections has risen by more than 9,000 cases, state data shows. In total, nearly 10,000 inmates and staff have tested positive.
So, surge began around the same time the sheriffs were dumping their prisoners on the state.
As for what caused the resurgence, that’s in dispute. IDOC officials said that when the virus is spreading in communities, staff may contract it at home and bring it into prisons. The screening process for staff includes temperature checks and, as of October, systemwide contact tracing.
The department says another source of infection is detainees being moved from county jails to prisons. Early in the pandemic, Pritzker signed an executive order that temporarily stopped the transfers, but they resumed in early August after the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association filed a lawsuit challenging the order. More than 4,000 jail detainees have entered state prisons since then.
But, hey, life ain’t fair. That Logan County judge tried to legislate statewide from his little county bench and, until he was finally reined in, the state was flooded with new inmates. It then became the state’s responsibility to deal with those folks.
Groups that track national virus data for state and federal prisons, such as the COVID Prison Project and The Marshall Project, place Illinois about average on lists comparing infections based on inmate populations, but Illinois has one of the higher death tolls.
Fatalities have been reported in at least 17 prisons across Illinois, with Dixon one of the latest hot spots. About one-third of Dixon’s staff was out recently due to sickness, union officials said, and at least 10 inmates, including Watson Gray, have died there since November.
Inmate advocates are pushing for more politically risky gubernatorial commutations and pardons.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 6,239 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 116 additional deaths.
- Adams County: 1 male 80s, 1 male 90s
- Cass County: 1 male 70s
- Champaign County: 1 female 80s
- Christian County: 1 male 60s
- Clark County: 1 male 70s, 1 female over 100
- Clinton County: 1 male 60s, 1 female 90s
- Cook County: 1 female 40s, 2 females 50s, 1 male 50s, 5 females 60s, 5 males 60s, 3 females 70s, 9 males 70s, 5 females 80s, 7 males 80s, 1 female 90s, 2 males 90s
- Douglas County: 1 female 70s, 1 female 80s
- DuPage County: 1 male 60s, 1 male 70s, 2 female 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s, 1 male 90s
- Fayette County: 1 female 60s, 1 female 80s
- Franklin County: 1 male 60s, 1 female 80s
- Grundy County: 1 female 90s
- Hamilton County: 1 female 70s
- Iroquois County: 1 male 70s
- Jackson County: 1 female over 100
- Kane County: 1 female 70s
- Kendall County: 1 female 60s
- Lake County: 2 males 70s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s, 1 female over 100
- LaSalle County: 2 females 80s, 1 male 80s
- Lee County: 1 female 70s
- Livingston County: 1 male 40s, 1 male 70s
- Madison County: 1 male 70s, 1 female 90s
- Marion County: 1 female over 100
- Massac County: 1 female over 100
- McHenry County: 2 females 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 male 90s
- Morgan County: 1 female 80s
- Moultrie County: 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
- Peoria County: 2 males 70s, 1 male 80s
- Perry County: 1 male 80s
- Richland County: 1 male 70s, 1 female over 100
- Sangamon County: 2 females 60s, 1 male 70s
- St. Clair County: 1 male 60s
- Stark County: 1 female 80s
- Stephenson County: 1 female 90s
- Tazewell County: 1 female 70s, 1 male 80s, 1 male 90s
- Will County: 2 males 60s, 1 female 70s, 1 female 90s
- Winnebago County: 1 male 40s, 2 females 60s, 3 females 70s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 911,308 cases, including 15,414 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 84,764 specimens for a total 12,605,743. As of last night, 4,571 in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 981 patients were in the ICU and 557 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from December 15 – December 21, 2020 is 7.4%. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from December 15 – December 21, 2020 is 9.0%.
*All data are provisional and will change. In order to rapidly report COVID-19 information to the public, data are being reported in real-time. Information is constantly being entered into an electronic system and the number of cases and deaths can change as additional information is gathered. Information for a death previously reported has changed, therefore, today’s numbers have been adjusted. For health questions about COVID-19, call the hotline at 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov.
The US could see a decline of two to three years in life expectancy in 2020 due to the coronavirus, the steepest drop since the second world war. Covid-19 is poised to become the third-leading cause of death in America, the Wall Street Journal reported.
This is the deadliest year in U.S. history, with deaths expected to top 3 million for the first time — due mainly to the coronavirus pandemic.
Final mortality data for this year will not be available for months. But preliminary numbers suggest that the United States is on track to see more than 3.2 million deaths this year, or at least 400,000 more than in 2019.
As the coronavirus ravages chronically understaffed Illinois nursing homes, state fines to enforce decade-old staffing minimums are supposed to take effect next week. But a lawmaker who helped broker administrative rules for the penalties says the enforcement will wait awhile longer.
A 2010 law established minimum hours of direct daily care for residents who need skilled nursing. Lawmakers did not enact the fines until 18 months ago. That measure says “monetary penalties shall be imposed beginning no later than Jan. 1, 2021.”
The Illinois Department of Public Health has nearly finalized the rules for the enforcement but state Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, says IDPH won’t actually start issuing fines until mid-year.
“That will allow the nursing homes to staff up as we hopefully move out of the pandemic,” said Cunningham, co-chair of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, which backed a draft of the enforcement rules last week.
“It will also give the Department of Public Health the ability to hire inspectors,” Cunningham said. “That’s something they haven’t done yet, and they can’t really enforce these rules until they have boots on the ground.”
The fines have been on the books for 18 months. The IDPH has had plenty of time to get its act together, even with the pandemic. This has “disaster” written all over it.
Americans have long relied on institutions to care for the frailest seniors. The U.S. has the largest number of nursing-home residents in the world. But families and some doctors have been reluctant to send patients to such facilities, fearing infection and isolation in places ravaged by Covid-19, which has caused more than 115,000 deaths linked to U.S. long-term-care institutions. […]
Occupancy in U.S. nursing homes is down by 15%, or more than 195,000 residents, since the end of 2019, driven both by deaths and by the fall in admissions, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data shows.
The decline in nursing-home patients covered by Medicare, which provides payments vital to the homes’ business model, is even steeper. That has left the industry in precarious financial shape. The biggest U.S. nursing-home company said in August it might not have enough money to pay its obligations.
* Illinois Times on the impact of Sangamon County’s mitigations on the local positivity rate…
The infection rate went down after local authorities, after initially resisting a gubernatorial directive, shut down bars and restaurants last month.
“Unfortunately, it was clear that there was a wave that was almost approaching a tidal wave of cases,” Dr. Donald Graham, an adviser to the Sangamon County Department of Public Health told Sam Madonia, a local radio host, [yesterday] morning. “It just wasn’t possible to stay open because there were cases all over the place.” It was impossible, Graham said, to determine whether indoor dining with safeguards would be safe because too many people didn’t follow rules. “There were parameters to follow that weren’t being followed,” Graham told Madonia. “One of the key ones was separation of people when they came into the restaurant, staying six feet apart.”
Last week, Dr. Brian Miller, president of the county health board, told Madonia that the health department closed bars and ended indoor dining in November because authorities had no way of stopping private gatherings and hospital beds were filling up. “With the numbers being what they were, if we could just decrease that number by 10 or 15 percent – we needed to get through that eye of the needle, because it was tight,” Miller told Madonia. “By doing that, we possibly avoided a major catastrophe.”
Lawyers for a Kane County restaurant [FoxFire Tavern] are asking the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn an appellate court decision that found the governor’s indoor dining ban was lawfully imposed.
FoxFire, a steak and seafood restaurant in Geneva, continues to allow seating indoors, in defiance of the governor’s executive order, as its legal case remains pending.
“Law and order.”
If you’re going to blatantly ignore an appellate court ruling, then why even spend the money on an appeal to the state’s highest court?
In a live video shared on Facebook on Thursday of Champaign County health inspectors filling out forms after witnessing indoor dining at Lil Buford’s, owner Jeff Buckler said he’s taking a stand despite being fined $500 a day for allowing people to dine inside his restaurant.
“COVID rates are down, go to Walmart, go to Target, go to any other shopping mall and it’s packed beyond belief,” Buckler told the county officials. “We’ve got nine people in here.”
The tiny crowd size could be an indicator that people don’t want to sit maskless inside near people they don’t know. Just sayin…
The debate became heated Monday night just before the council voted 6-1 to waive renewal fees for liquor license holders who follow state rules including one that forbids them from serving customers indoors.
Council member Stan Nord voted no, saying staff should not be playing partisan politics by pushing Pritzker’s positions.
“We’re creating this essentially as a way to financially incentivize or bribe someone to follow these rules,” said Nord.
City Manager Pam Reece took the unusual step of publicly criticizing an elected official.
“That is not the first time Mr. Nord has implied and even come right out and stated that we’re bribing and doing things that would be completely unethical, and I just want counsel to acknowledge that is absolutely not the case, not happening, and not okay to imply that you as a body or town staff would do that,” said Reece.
* The 2020 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Use of Social Media in Illinois Politics goes to Hannah Meisel and it wasn’t even close…
Hannah Meisel has used her platform on social media to make sure we don’t forget about the human toll of COVID-19 in Illinois. Even when she lost her job, she kept on posting reliable, understandable, invaluable information.
Her social media presence strikes the perfect balance between professional and personal. She is engaging, warm, and real.
This woman has the truly righteous stuff. Well done.
There are few invaluable Twitter accounts. Hannah’s is definitely one of them. She’s also just a great person and I’m proud to know her.
Runner-up goes to Kelly Bauer for all her hard work this year. Her Lightfoot/Pritzker press conference coverage alone is worth the follow.
* On to our final category…
* The Wordslinger Golden Horseshoe Award for Best CapitolFax.Com Commenter of 2020
We haven’t done one of these in two years because Wordslinger passed away last year and we gave it to him in memoriam.
These are big shoes to fill, so take your time and compose thoughtful nominations, please. No drive-bys and snark will get you banned. Also, please keep your focus on what the nominees have done in 2020.
The distribution plan for the first wave of the COVID-19 shots is frustrating some Chicago area hospitals and angering others.
The I-Team looked into the question of “Where are the vaccines?”
Monday was nicknamed “COVID-D-Day,” after the pivotal beginning of the end of World War Two.
By Tuesday, a day later for some suburban Chicago hospitals, the D in this day is disappointment. Because the vaccines that arrived in Illinois Monday have not yet arrived at their hospitals, or into the arms of their health care workers.
The state planned and rehearsed vaccine distribution for weeks. That preparedness paid off.
* Meanwhile, the coverage hype over members of Congress receiving vaccines ahead of some frontline health care workers ignores this…
Lawmakers and federal officials have indicated they have little discretion in the matter. The National Continuity Policy outlined in Presidential Policy Directive 40 in 2016 calls for any continuity-of-government action taken by the executive branch to be accompanied by parallel action in the legislative and judicial branches.
I mean, I get it. A whole bunch of folks who are members of one of the country’s least respected institutions and who’ve been sowing doubt about basic pandemic mitigations are being giddily vaccinated while nurses and doctors who deal with COVID-19 patients are waiting their turn. But this isn’t some ad hoc thing.
* I sure hope doctors and nurses are informing people when they get their shots that they could still spread the virus…
I don’t think people really comprehend this…it’s imperative that folks understand that while the vaccine effectively prevents you from becoming ill, it may not prevent you from becoming infected asymptomatically and continuing to spread the virus and infect others. https://t.co/z6Yeut4jAm
According to the [Chicago] police department’s own data, officers primarily target drugs in search warrants but failed to find any in 95 percent of search warrants seeking narcotics in a three-year period
Data is based on an examination of 6,855 search warrants served at Chicago residences from 2016 to 2019.
