The following statement is from Congresswoman Robin Kelly, Chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Illinois, on the passing of Don Johnston, Democratic State Central Committee member representing the 17th Congressional District:
“I am deeply saddened by Don Johnston’s passing over the weekend. Don spent his entire life dedicated to furthering Democratic ideals - helping those in need, supporting our families, workers and veterans and working to achieve equality for those often left behind.
“Public service was a central theme throughout Don’s life, from service as a Vietnam War-era veteran to Moline Township Supervisor and Rock Island County Board member. Don was well known for hosting an annual military surplus blanket giveaway to benefit Quad Cities residents and social service organizations in need. He had a long career working alongside organized labor, including serving as former U.S. Senator Paul Simon’s statewide labor director.
“Don was always quick to volunteer his time or advice and was a trusted partner in many projects that encouraged people to vote and become more involved in their communities. His legacy of service will be felt in the Quad Cities and across Illinois for a long time to come.
“My thoughts and prayers are with Don and his loved ones. He was a wonderful man, friend, and Democrat, and he will be greatly missed.”
* Press release…
The entire Illinois AFL-CIO officers, staff and board mourn the recent passing of former president of the Illinois AFL-CIO Robert Gibson.
Gibson was the influential head of the state’s largest labor organization from 1979 to 1989, ushering in the state’s collective bargaining law for public sector workers and negotiating major reforms to the unemployment insurance law.
After serving in the Coast Guard during World War II, Gibson went to work as a Steelworker at Granite City Steel. He was named the Illinois AFL-CIO’S first community services director in 1958 and was elected secretary-treasurer in 1963. The Illinois AFL-CIO named its annual Community Services Award after Gibson. The Gibson Award annually honors a rank-and-file member who goes above and beyond in their communities.
“Bob Gibson never forgot where he came from,” said Illinois AFL-CIO President Tim Drea. “He helped build the labor movement in Illinois into what it is today. His charisma and personality are legendary, and his contributions to making people’s lives better are undisputed. His legacy of focusing on service to our communities lives on.”
Visitation will be held on Thursday from 4:00-7:00 pm at Sunset Hill Funeral Home, 50 Fountain Drive, Glen Carbon, Illinois, 62034. Interment will be at Sunset Hill at 10:00 am Friday. He will be laid to rest next to his wife of many years, Martha.
Reporter: What are school districts supposed to do when kids show up and, maybe they’re vaccinated maybe they’re not, and they don’t wear a mask? What are they supposed to do?
Pritzker: School districts have been enforcing dress codes for many, many years. And so they’re expected simply to do the same thing they’ve been doing literally for decades. And, you know, I expect that people will do the right thing nonetheless, and not put their school district in a difficult situation of having to tell somebody ‘follow the rules.’
* And, by the way, I have a strong suspicion that at least some of the same people protesting the loudest about masks are also the types who strongly support bans like this…
Schools “can’t enforce masks” but sure did enforce not letting us wear shorts or spaghetti straps.
Most schools already have rules on skirt lengths, shoulder, neckline, midriff exposure and more. Let’s be real, requiring kids to cover their nose and mouth in a pandemic isn’t a “freedom” issue.
Exactly! They had no problem calling me at work and pulling me away from my job to bring my son a belt because, according to their “uniform code,” he couldn’t stay at school without one.🤬
I think I’ve told you that my grade school lunch ladies refused to serve me because of the length of my hair. I had bangs.
* There’s also this…
My argument also. There's one child in my kids ' school of over 1700 students with a severe peanut allergy and no one has a problem with protecting that child, bc it is the right thing to do!!
* The Mahomet-Seymour and Monticello school district superintendents penned an op-ed for the Champaign News-Gazette. Here’s the end…
We don’t like government mandates, either — trust us: There are plenty sent our way every year — and we believe that our school boards and local communities trust us enough to make the right calls for our local districts when it comes to school (not medical or political) decisions.
Ignoring the requirement for universal masking puts our teachers and building administrators in extremely difficult positions. The continued debate is a distraction from the critically important goal of getting our kids back in school. The “fight,” if you will, is no longer at the local level, since local control has been taken away.
We are looking forward to seeing our students and teachers back in our buildings for full school days, sporting and music events, drama productions, regular recess and lunch times and social opportunities.
They showed us last year that masking was not a big deal — if that’s what it takes right now, then so be it. It’s time to move forward with the 2021-22 school year and to focus on what public schools do best — educate students.
For Marlena and Ben McCoy in Marion, they had their children politely refuse to wear masks Monday, saying it’s not healthy for them to breathe their own air for eight hours a day.
They said at first, administrators at Crab Orchard in Williamson County said to just take the kids home, but the McCoys insisted that if they’re not being disciplined, their children must be in class. The administrators eventually suspended the three children.
An administrator from the district didn’t return messages seeking comment.
Marlena said they couldn’t stand by anymore without fighting back.
“It’s time to stand up and it’s time to fight against what is not the government’s to take,” Marlena said. “The Bible teaches us to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and they are clearly asking something that is not Caesar’s and we’re not going to be willing to give it anymore.”
It was tough to “walk into the fire,” but Marlena said her children understood.
“They’re excited to be part of whatever this movement is going to be,” she said. “My husband made kind of a silly comment, he said ‘your blood bleeds a little bit more red than most Americans right now,’ because they’re fighting what most won’t.” […]
“He’s putting everything on the line, his sports, his academics,” Phillips said, noting her son is a leader on the middle-school baseball team and a good student. “Suspensions are supposed to be for bad things like fights, not for good students.”
Phillips said her son may go back to school Wednesday with a mask in order to be eligible for a Thursday baseball game, but she also has her eye on a national day of action called “Walkout Wednesday.” She said that could have students across the country walking out of schools at noon to protest COVID-19 mitigation protocols.
“Breathe their own air.” A mask ain’t a diving bell.
Illinois jumped from 13th [30th] to 15th among top states for business in CNBC’s annual study of America’s Top States for Business [released July 13th], but some of the state’s metrics still don’t look so good.
The study used 85 different metrics to determine the rankings including infrastructure and access to capital, in which Illinois ranked first and third, respectively.
Todd Maisch, president and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, says while this looks good, a deeper dive into the methodology is telling.
“The categories they use for infrastructure, in which Illinois is ranked number one, and access to capital, we’re ranked number three – if those were not where they are, we would not be anywhere close to 15, I don’t think,” Maisch said.
Some people just can’t stop bashing their own state. Take the W, for crying out loud. There’s plenty of time and room for other criticism. Plenty. Plus, by not trying to grab a share of the credit, the naysayers are allowing Democrats to take it all for themselves. “And we are going to do it,” promised one top Dem today after I sent over the link.
Governor Pritzker remains focused on guiding the state through COVID-19 by following the science, listening to medical experts, and is proud of all the Illinoisans who have been working together to fight the pandemic—his campaign message continues to reflect that.
This would be the first ad released under the campaign’s new management.
Pritzker: We’re ready to put the full weight of the state behind a full fledged response.
I’m gonna fight like hell for you in the weeks ahead.
We need the federal government to lead, follow or get out of the way.
Announcer: Staying focused on the job at hand.
Pritzker: This is not a time for politics. We have too much to do to save people’s lives.
Announcer: Never giving up.
Pritzker: We can defeat this thing in Illinois or do better than the other states because our people are just better at this. We’ve proven that.
Announcer: Never giving in.
Pritzker: We’ve been operating on facts and data and science from the very beginning.
I reject the premise of the question. The idea that this is a complete trade-off between keeping you healthy and making sure that we have an economy that’s moving forward.
Announcer: And always working to keep Illinoisans safe.
Pritzker: We want to make sure we get every dose into every arm that we possibly can across the state as quickly as possible.
Announcer: JB Pritzker. Strong leadership in tough times.
A growing number of companies are pushing their return to the office back to October and beyond, as the COVID-19 delta variant fuels a pandemic resurgence across the country. Some companies are also mandating unvaccinated employees either get jabbed before they come back or get a new job.
From Northbrook-based pizza chain Lou Malnati’s to online retail giant Amazon, many Chicago-area employees are getting the same message: Stay home, at least for now.
That was not the plan for many businesses, which until recently targeted September as the consensus point of return to the office for at least some of their remote workforce. But the rise of the more transmissible delta variant has changed those plans, with companies large and small moving the office return date back to the fall, and in some cases, next year.
In late July, tech giants Google and Apple told employees they were pushing back the office returns from September to October. Microsoft soon followed suit, and Amazon upped the ante, delaying its office return until January 2022.
Illinois lifted all capacity limits and social distancing requirements for private businesses two months ago, ‘fully reopening’ from the restrictive pandemic protocols that confined public life for nearly a year-and-a-half. Yet, months after the state entered the new ‘Phase 5’ of Governor Pritzker’s plan to rebuild from the Coronavirus, approximately four in ten state workers are still working remotely.
A Pritzker administration memo says 40% of state workers in executive agencies are not reporting to work every day in the office, though several agency heads said their workers are still able to be effective and productive by working from home or by visiting the office on rotation in a hybrid manner.
The internal document, which was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, charts out how many workers from each agency are working from the office every day compared to how many are working virtually or “on rotation.” Out of 48,480 state workers in those agencies, 19,190 were listed as remote or on rotation at the time the July 9th memo was prepared. The figures merely represented a snapshot in time, and have likely fluctuated over the last few weeks as several agencies have ramped up efforts to negotiate a gradual return to government offices.
Nearly a third of those remote or hybrid workers were from the Department of Human Services, which had reported 55% of its workforce back in the office full-time. However, the agency said their productivity actually increased after they sent more than half of their workers home when the pandemic hit.
There are so many distractions in an office, so I can see why productivity might actually increase.
Meanwhile, the Illinois Department of Human Services is responding to outbreaks in care facilities. DHS Senior Policy Advisor Dana Kelly says 10 of the state’s 14 facilities have an “outbreak status.” Kelly noted there are very few breakthrough cases, but you can see several facilities had fully vaccinated staff and residents contract COVID.
The department also reported 155 full-time staff tested positive between April 24 and July 23. Although, only 21 of those employees had vaccinations.
“We continue to promote strict adherence to safety protocols and long-term care guidelines according to IDPH guidance,” Kelly said.
IDHS has provided 28,276 vaccinations at facilities across the state since January. Kelly explained 82% of those, 5,270 shots, went to residents and patients. She also noted 53% of the doses, 6,290 shots, went to IDHS facility staff. 11,179 community members and 5,290 SNAP, TANF, and Medicaid clients also received vaccines.
82% of all patients in DHS facilities have received at least one dose. Kelly explained 79% of patients have received both doses. However, only 53% of DHS staff are vaccinated. Kelly said 45% of employees at developmental centers have received at least one dose. Meanwhile, 67% of staff at psychiatric hospitals received vaccines.
Public health officials from across the state spoke during a House healthcare committee hearing Monday morning. State experts stressed Illinois continues to see increasing transmission, hospitalization, and preventable deaths among unvaccinated people.
IDPH notes the Delta variant is still the most dominant strain of COVID-19 in the state. Contrary to statements by some Republican lawmakers, the variant has spread quickly among people of all ages. The state’s leading epidemiologist says cases of COVID for 5 to 11-year-olds went up 788% over the past month.
“Our 12 to 17-year-olds had an increase in their case counts of 704%,” said Dr. Sarah Patrick. “And the 18 to 22-year-olds had an 1345% increase.”
Patrick says IDPH linked the significant increase in cases to COVID outbreaks at summer camps, sporting events in other states, and community spread. She also explained that just under 1,500 of the new COVID-19 cases in July were children under 18.
Prolific anti-COVID mitigation attorney Tom DeVore on Monday filed suit over Gov. JB Pritzker’s mandate requiring all students, faculty and staff at Illinois schools wear masks in the face of the coronavirus’ more contagious Delta variant spreading across the state.
DeVore filed the suit on behalf of a father of a student in Breese School District 12 in Clinton County, about 40 miles east of St. Louis. The complaint, filed in local district court, alleges Pritzker overstepped his authority in signing an executive order last week mandating masks in all preschools, elementary and secondary schools in Illinois.
“While Pritzker will spill gallons on ink on the history of the COVID pandemic and how his administration has worked to keep people ‘safe,’ none of this obfuscation is relevant to the precise question of what is the extent of his delegated power by the legislature under the [Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act],” DeVote wrote in the 11-page complaint. […]
Unlike most of the suits filed by DeVore and others in the last 18 months, Monday’s lawsuit does not challenge Pritzker’s ability to issue continuous disaster declarations beyond the 30-day period provided for in the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act, or IEMAA. While the courts have settled that question in Pritzker’s favor, DeVore’s suit over the school mask mandate alleges the IEMAA doesn’t allow a governor to usurp the authority of school districts.
Hannah has done her usual good job at explaining this, so go read the rest if you’re interested in the details. The lawsuit is here. The EO is here. The Revised Public Health Guidance for Schools is here. And the IEMAA is here.
As a last resort, the Illinois State Board of Education can also remove a school’s “recognition status,” he said. That could mean a loss of state funding, said Jackie Matthews, executive director of communications for the board.
The state board has authority under state law to reduce the recognition status of any school district exhibiting “deficiencies that present a health hazard or a danger to students or staff.”
DeVore announced he was seeking a seat on the state’s appellate court in late July. Prior to his announcement, Pritzker said the lawyer offered a “bounty” for photos of him out celebrating Thanksgiving at the height of the pandemic, even bothering his children.
The lawyer referenced these images in the lawsuit, stating that the governor doesn’t follow the restrictions he put in place.
“While this federal guidance is not binding authority on any party involved, It bears mentioning to the Court that Pritzker constantly gaslights the public by stating he’s following the facts and science until times like this,” DeVore wrote. “When local governing bodies exercise their own informed discretion consistent with the facts and science of the federal government, but seemingly in a manner of which he disagrees.”
The peak hospitalization for those under 12 statewide was Nov. 1, 2020, with 105 hospitalized across the state. That dropped in the months after to 31 on Feb. 1, 2021, 58 on March 1, 2021, 58 on April 1, 2021, 55 on May 1, 2021, and 29 on June 1, 2021. For July 1, 2021, IDPH says there were 57 children under 12 hospitalized, or half of the peak in November.
There were fewer 12- to 17-year-olds hospitalized during that same time frame, from August 2020 to July 2021. That category peaked at 72 hospitalized statewide on Nov. 1, 2020. For July 1, 2021, there were 21 children 12- to 17-year-olds hospitalized with COVID, according to data provided by IDPH.
Um, our current overall hospitalization numbers are just 22 percent of what they were at their peak in November. Our current statewide positivity rate is about half what it is in Texas and Florida. But it does appear to be moving this way.
* Related…
* Manito superintendent clarifies position on masking in schools: In specific, Hellrigel’s [Facebook] letter bashes how the order takes away local control from districts. He also criticizes Governor Pritzker, saying he “repeadedly lied” to the public and encourages people to call the Governor and other state officials with their concerns. … “My intention was not to make a political statement but to provide our families with the contacts they needed to express their opinions to those that can make a change,” Hellrigel said.
* Lambasting Gov. Pritzker’s ‘tyrannical mandates,’ Morton school board member protests masks: “If you are from a surrounding school district, I want you to courageously go to your school board and tell them you will not tolerate the governor’s tyrannical mandates,” he said [on Facebook] . “If you will stand up for your children’s individual rights, we can win this battle for freedom and choice. But we must all courageously stand together.”
* Parents speak out against mandatory masks in schools: “I’m not against anybody who wants the vaccine and I’m not against anybody who wants their kid to wear a mask. But that’s because that’s their choice for their child and my choice and what’s best for my family is for my kids to not wear a mask and have in-person learning,” said Rebecca Flanary, from the Facebook Group Unmask Massac.
Democratic state Rep. La Shawn Ford agreed Monday that there needs to be a unified message. He acknowledged political tensions.
“What you have in Chicago, the mayor fighting with the governor, and the judges fighting with the police, and the mayor fighting with the prosecutors and the judges,” Ford told WMAY. “There’s a gang war between politicians. And so I don’t know how we’re going to be able to deal with the crisis at hand when politicians don’t come together and deal with the problems…”
Also, take some time today to read Evan Moore’s tweet thread, either here or here. It’s not what you’ll usually find and the longtime reporter is quite experienced in this topic.
* Illinois Opportunity Project President Mark Cavers is right about the suburbs being the battleground for Gov. JB Pritzker in 2022 because the suburbs are always the biggest battleground…
In 2018, 38 percent of the overall vote came out of Cook County. However, this Democratic stronghold can be balanced out by the 96 downstate counties, where 37 percent of the vote is located. So, rather than a state dominated by Chicago, if Republicans can drive turnout among their voters, they can cancel out Democratic margins in Cook County.
If Republicans can successfully neutralize Cook County by turning out downstate voters, the election will be decided in the suburbs, where the remaining 25 percent of voters live.
And we just saw that there are voters who can be moved by the right message. In 2020, there were 681,000 voters statewide who voted against Pritzker’s tax-hike amendment but not for Trump.
These voters, predominantly located in the suburbs, have rejected Pritzker’s cornerstone issue, but they evaluate candidates individually. In that same 1892 Polling survey, 10 percent of those who said they voted for President Joe Biden had an unfavorable view of Pritzker, and 22 percent had no opinion. They are with Republicans on the message; Republicans just need the right messenger.
It remains an open question which Republican candidates up and down the ballot can successfully prosecute the case against Pritzker and the Democrats while clearing a competence and character bar that Trump struggled to clear in the minds of many voters.
The hard truth is the Republican Party has been scaring away suburban voters in droves for 20 years in Illinois (with some exceptions) with the issues they choose to run on and the types of people they nominate. Also, the sort of person who can gin up a ton of Downstate turnout is not generally the type who can play well in the suburbs. Bruce Rauner did it (barely winning the primary) and eventually brought peace to the party in 2018, but then eventually created loads of chaos.
* The Illinois State Fair starts back up again this Thursday. We didn’t get a State Fair last year, of course, so I was wondering about your thoughts ahead of this year’s event?
Now that he’s a member of the Illinois General Assembly, Nick Smith isn’t embarrassed to say he struggled early in college. As he bounced back and forth between classes and his job, he spent little time on campus.
It wasn’t until Smith got a work-study job at Olive-Harvey College, a Far South Side community college, that things changed. “I started to feel immersed in the academic setting. I started to feel focused,” he recalls. After completing the two-year program, Smith went on to get a bachelor’s degree from nearby Chicago State University, and since 2019 he has represented the 34th District in the State Assembly.
With his personal experience in mind, Smith introduced legislation in Springfield this year that allows community colleges to add student housing for the first time. Signed into law July 9 by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the measure allows for residential projects to begin on or near campuses throughout the state starting in January. […]
“Retention, retention, retention” is the goal of the new law, said Thomas Saban, interim president of Prairie State College, a community college in south suburban Chicago Heights. Saban isn’t planning to become a developer of dorms: The law requires community colleges to partner with their local affordable housing agency to build student housing.
When former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the Freedom to Work Act, or FWA, into law in 2016, the circumstances weren’t all that controversial. The measure, prompted by a Jimmy John’s policy that barred employees from getting hired at rival sandwich shops, would protect low-wage workers from noncompete agreements that stifled their earning potential. Even Rauner, a politician reviled by organized labor groups, got on board with the idea after the Illinois Attorney General’s Office sued the chain known for its “freaky fast” delivery
Now the FWA, originally limited in scope, is set to become much more expansive.
Under a bill passed unanimously by lawmakers this spring, and which Gov. J.B. Pritzker still must sign, employers are prohibited from imposing noncompetes on workers earning below $75,000 and from using nonsolicitation agreements on those making below $45,000. Advocates laud the move as a victory for economic mobility—especially as employees re-evaluate their priorities and job preferences during the pandemic. But some local businesses worry the changes are coming at a time of monumental uncertainty. With President Joe Biden recently directing the Federal Trade Commission to rein in the “unfair use” of noncompetes, the rules could continue shifting, and companies fear more restrictions will put their proprietary information, client lists and employee retention efforts at risk.
* Press release…
Legislation sponsored by State Senator Donald DeWitte (R-St. Charles) that provides units of government with greater opportunities to obtain more favorable returns on invested reserve funds has been signed into law. The new provisions apply to all units of government, from the State of Illinois, down to counties, municipalities, townships, and smaller local units such as schools, park districts, and libraries.
Senate Bill 273, signed by Gov. Pritzker on Friday, provides units of government with a wider variety of investment tools for reserve funds. The legislation was negotiated between the Illinois Association of Park district and the Illinois Treasurer’s Office.
“This legislation gives those who oversee units of government greater flexibility when they invest public funds,” said Sen. DeWitte. “I want to thank Treasurer Frerichs and his staff for their assistance in helping craft language that ensures governmental units have the widest level of choices possible for their investments, while also protecting taxpayers for overly-aggressive and risky investments.”
Specifically, through SB 273, public agencies can invest in up to 1/3 of their reserve funds in specific corporate investments and an additional 1/3 in other corporate investments that meet prescribed parameters.
“This is one small way that we can help units of government grow their revenues internally without having to go to taxpayers,” added Sen. DeWitte.
SB 273 received unanimous approval in the Senate and House, and its provisions take effect immediately.
* One thing that has almost completely gotten lost in the shuffle about this Exelon bailout plan is that the company is planning to spin off its power generation unit later this year and is naturally hoping to juice up the potential stock price. A state deal would most definitely help them do that. Here’s Steve Daniels…
Exelon has struck an $885 million deal to buy out its nuclear partnership with a French utility giant, removing one impediment to quickly separating into two companies.
But the deal with EDF adds $880 million in debt to Exelon’s balance sheet, all of which will be shifted to the financially weaker power-generation business once the company spins it off from its regulated utilities, including Chicago’s Commonwealth Edison. […]
British banking giant Barclays is providing Exelon with an $880 million 364-day term loan to finance the EDF transaction, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing. The loan is being made to Exelon Generation, the company’s power-plant unit, rather than the holding company.
As of June 30, Exelon Generation had $1.2 billion in debt due within a year, according to a different SEC filing, so this amount nearly doubles that total. In addition, ExGen has $4.6 billion in long-term debt.
* Meanwhile, here’s the governor’s chief of staff…
Climate change is here, it’s getting worse, it’s not a niche political issue but an every day concern that has real impacts on health, business and the quality of our lives. https://t.co/71Ci7LQIhx
Nearly half of the Illinois children who are currently eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine (meaning those aged 12-17) have already received at least one dose, according to new state data.
Meanwhile, more than a third – 37.6 percent – were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported.
The numbers for kids ages 12 to 17 were encouraging, said Dr. Anita Chandra-Puri, a Chicago pediatrician and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. “That’s fantastic news if that’s the case. I would love that,” she said in an interview. […]
While comparable data wasn’t immediately available for other states, Illinois ranks high nationally in terms of percentage of all children who have been vaccinated.
Nearly a fifth (19.3 percent) of all Illinois children (aged 0-17, including those not currently eligible for the vaccine) have received at least one dose of the vaccine. At that rate, Illinois is in a three-way tie for ninth place among states, according to data published by the Mayo Clinic. Vermont, which had the highest share of kids with at least one dose, had a rate of 25 percent.
Illinois fares a little worse among states when it comes to the percentage of all kids (newborn to age 18) with full vaccinations. Again, Vermont led the pack, with a rate of 21.4 percent. Illinois trailed behind with a rate of 12.4 percent, putting it in a tie for 15th overall.
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago will require that all employees, students, contractors, badged vendors, and volunteers be vaccinated against COVID-19 by October 18, 2021. The requirement applies to Lurie Children’s workforce of more than 7,500 to stop the spread of the virus and keep all patients and their families, staff, colleagues, and the community safe.
Lurie Children’s will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination, as it does other vaccines, and health precautions (Flu Shot, TDAP, etc.), as a condition of employment noting that exemptions may be made for approved medical or religious reasons.
“Vaccination continues to be the most effective safeguard against coronavirus. As the nation and Illinois experiences a resurgence of cases, we feel that the best way to keep our patients, families, and workforce safe is to continue to follow the proven mitigation protocols and safety precautions including masks, social distancing, hand hygiene and our daily self-screening by employees,” said Thomas Shanley, MD, President & CEO, Lurie Children’s. “The safety of our patients, many of whom are too young to receive the vaccination, and our workforce is our top priority. This vaccination requirement stresses our commitment to the community to help slow and stop the spread of COVID-19.”
The vaccination requirement comes on the heels of rising hospitalizations and COVID-19 cases – particularly of the highly transmissible Delta variant.
Early research is showing that current COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against disease and hospitalization for the Delta variant, and in general, can prevent serious illness or death. Lurie Children’s is a clinical trial site for the Moderna vaccine.
For several years, Lurie Children’s has required vaccination for seasonal flu vaccination and other contagious diseases. “As healthcare professionals caring for children and adolescents, this COVID vaccine requirement is the responsible thing to do and will provide reassurance to the patients and families we serve. We must do everything we can to end this pandemic and save lives,” said Shanley.
A poll of the public by Quinnipiac University has found that 48 percent of those responding favor mandatory vaccines for college students, while 48 percent are opposed. The poll found support for mandatory vaccinations by only 18 percent of Republicans, and 86 percent of Democrats. The poll also found that women and those with a four-year college degree are more likely to support mandatory vaccinations than are men and those who did not earn a four-year degree.
Then came delta — B.1.617.2. It had spread rapidly in India, but in the United States, it sat there for months, doing little as the alpha advanced. As recently as May 8, delta caused only about 1 percent of new infections nationally.
Today, it has nearly wiped out all of its rivals. The coronavirus pandemic in America has become a delta pandemic. By the end of July, it accounted for 93.4 percent of new infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. […]
Hospitals in states with low vaccination rates are struggling to cope with a flood of patients. At the same time, vaccination rates are jumping as the reality of the pandemic and the efficacy of the vaccines overcome fear, inertia and disinformation. […]
The flip side is that the delta surge is expected to peak faster. A more contagious virus finds susceptible people quickly and burns through that “fuel” faster. This may explain why the United Kingdom and India have both experienced surprisingly swift drop in cases after recent delta surges.
Hope is not a plan, but keep your fingers crossed anyway.
Ticketholders in the grandstand track area (also known as Standing Room Only) will be required to provide a print or digital copy of personal Vaccine Card, Vaccine Record, or Negative COVID-19 test within the 72 hours preceding the concert.
Illinois state fair concerts to require vaccine proof or negative test and masks
Grab the mask and your vaccination card, or be ready to prove you don’t have COVID-19, if you plan to attend the concerts at the Illinois State Fair starting Thursday in Springfield.
That’s just a ridiculous over-statement. I sure hope newspapers are actually reading this freely supplied content before publishing it.
DCFS not included in state’s new mask requirements
Gov. JB Pritzker announced sweeping mask and vaccine requirements for multiple state agencies Wednesday, but one was notably left off the list: the Department of Children and Family Services.
Long-term care facilities were among the hardest hit by COVID-19 in McLean County last year. Nursing home employees also were put at the front of the line to receive COVID vaccines when they became available in late 2020.
But many nursing home employees have passed on getting the vaccine.
Records recently posted online by the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) show three long-term care facilities in McLean County — Bloomington Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, Luther Oaks and Arcadia Care of Bloomington — have staff vaccination rates of less than 25% as of July 25. […]
An advocate for nursing home residents said facility operators need to figure out why some staff members are reluctant to vaccinate. Angie Baker, regional ombudsman with the East Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging, said unvaccinated staff pose health risks to nursing home residents as the Delta variant fuels a new wave of coronavirus infections.
Andy Ray must have repeated it to himself a hundred times, especially in the minutes before caregivers at HSHS St. John’s Hospital leaned his head back and inserted a breathing tube down his windpipe to keep COVID-19 from killing him.
“I kept thinking, ‘If I had gotten that shot, I wouldn’t be here,’” Ray, 52, told The State Journal-Register Thursday. “That’s all I could think of.”
Before going on a ventilator that would help him breathe for five of the 23 days he spent in the Springfield hospital in May and June, the rural Mount Sterling farmer’s thoughts also dwelled on the close family friend who succumbed to COVID-19 in the fall, before vaccines were available.
Once in the hospital, Ray, who lives about 65 miles west of Springfield, asked whether he could get a COVID-19 shot but was told it was too late for the vaccine to do any good. His wife couldn’t be at his side because she, too, had contracted COVID-19 by that time, though she didn’t need to be hospitalized.
* More…
* Vaccination milestone: 70% of Chicago adults have gotten at least one shot, city says
Vowing to “ensure access to justice for all, the mayor of Highland Park launched her bid for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court on Friday, setting the stage for what could be a hotly contested race to represent a newly redrawn district on the state’s top court.
Making her third run for higher office in five years, Nancy Rotering, a Democrat in her third term as mayor of the North Shore suburb, joins Democratic and Republican judges in Lake County who are also vying for the seat formerly held by Justice Robert Thomas. […]
Kicking off her run for the state’s top court, Rotering announced a slew of endorsements, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Marie Newman, the mayors of Deerfield, Buffalo Grove and Fox Lake as well as Democratic state Representatives Bob Morgan of Deerfield, Dan Didech of Buffalo Grove, Sam Yingling of Grayslake and Joyce Mason of Gurnee.
Elizabeth Rochford, an associate judge in Lake County, is also running as a Democrat for the Supreme Court seat, which now covers Lake, McHenry, Kane, DeKalb and Kendall counties.
Daniel Shanes, a Lake County judge, plans to run as a Republican for the Second District seat in next year’s June 28 primary.
* Press release from Gary Rabine…
In response to the tragic death of a police officer Saturday night in Chicago and the severe wounding of another officer, Gary Rabine, a candidate for Governor, is calling on Gov. Pritzker to stop ignoring the wave of violent crime in the City of Chicago.
“How many police officers and innocent civilians have to die before Gov. Pritzker takes what is happening in the City of Chicago seriously?” Rabine said. “Where are you Governor? Show us you are not partnered with Kim Fox! A great leader doesn’t sleep as tragedies like this in our state continue because of terrible policies and terrible leadership. JB needs to wake up and hold Kim Fox accountable for violating her professional code of ethics daily when she refuses to enforce the Illinois law she agreed to under oath.”
Rabine said the Governor could put pressure on Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to address the rise in violent crime. He could withhold various state funds to the City to force the mayor to solve the problems. He could call a Special Session of the General Assembly to deal with the violence and, as a last resort, he could deploy the National Guard.
“There are ways the Governor could step up and protect the lives of innocent people and the lives of police officers, but instead he has chosen to ignore what is happening in Chicago,” Rabine said. “Chicago’s best – our police officer – show their passion and their bravery as they serve us every single day. A great governor would respond by serving our police and our communities by using his executive powers to retract the bad policies that have handcuffed our police and take bold action to protect the citizens of this state. Unfortunately, we do not ave a great governor. We have a weak, self-serving leader whose policies are benefitting politically connected insiders at the expense of the people.”
Rabine is asking Illinois residents to pray for this heroic young woman’s 2-month-old baby now without a mother, the other officer fighting for his life, and their families.
“My prayers are also for the many innocent families who have lost loved ones in one of the most violent summers in Chicago history,” Rabine said. “I am also praying for our governor, to find the strength to get his hands dirty and the courage to retract bad policy and protect the people in every community of our state.”
I asked what Rabine would have the General Assembly do in a special session…
The point here is to make this issue a priority and use the bully pulpit that is the Governor’s office to bring about meaningful changes.
Um, OK, but if you bring the GA back into special session, you gotta give them something to do.
* Speaking of which, these folks claim Rabine signed an affidavit demanding an audit of Illinois’ 2020 vote…
A successful #2 event yesterday in Villa Park. Not only did we get to support Back the Blue, we got to hear Gary Rabine, candidate for Governor, Peggy Hubbard, for Senate-Christine Shanahan McGovern for Senate and Kathy O’Shea for Congress - yes they all signed affidavits! pic.twitter.com/TaBQf9PBeC
A great governor will show his passion and bravery to serve our police and our communities by using his executive powers to retract the bad policies that have handcuffed our police. Retract his signature on these horrific bills and FIRE Kim Foxx!
Retract his signature? Fire an elected state’s attorney? Does he have even the slightest clue what a governor does?
Few people can say their spouse encouraged them to go into politics.
But when David Palmer, a local former pro basketballer turned youth-development coach turned financial adviser, couldn’t stop chatting at weekly Illini football tailgates, his wife, Chelsea, took notice.
“You’re not the mayor,” she told him. “You know you can just walk out and leave, right?”
Then November 2020 came around, and politics dominated their conversations. Election buzz lit a fire under the couple, and Chelsea chimed in again:
“We talk about this so often, we’re going to have to get off the couch and do something about it,” she said.
Nine months later, Palmer is booting up his campaign for Illinois’ 13th Congressional District, in hopes to unseat five-term U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville.
He has a great story, but nobody has a good handle on what the new districts will look like. We’re losing a seat, so the new map will be drastically different, particularly Downstate.
Please also pray for her wounded partner, who is in the hospital fighting for his life. We're asking for everyone to lift up this officer and his family as we pray for his recovery.
I was told the post doesn’t mean the caucus is “anti-mask.” Um, ok.
* Jordan Abudayyeh at the governor’s office…
While the administration continues to welcome input from the General Assembly, community stakeholders and public health experts, there is no debate on the effectiveness of masks. Masks prevent the spread of coronavirus and the CDC has recommended their use indoors regardless of vaccination status. Insinuating that science is up for debate is reckless and puts the public’s health at risk.
* Jaclyn Driscoll at the House Speaker’s office…
The CDC says students should wear masks indoors. The American Academy of Pediatrics says students should wear masks indoors. Doctors and our most trusted health professionals say students should wear masks indoors. I’m not sure why Republicans don’t trust doctors.
When Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently announced that state employees who work in congregate facilities would have to be vaccinated by Oct. 4, the largest state employee union, AFSCME, released a statement chiding the governor.
“We strongly oppose any effort to define them as part of the problem,” the powerful union claimed on behalf of those workers.
But Pritzker also said that about 80% of new COVID-19 cases in those congregate facilities “have been due to infection among employees.”
“Our most vulnerable residents, such as veterans who can’t live on their own, and adults living with developmental disabilities have no choice but to live amongst these workers,” Pritzker said. “It’s a breach of safety, it’s fundamentally wrong and, in Illinois, it’s going to stop.”
Aside from the danger posed to residents or inmates, outbreaks can also result in potentially exposed unvaccinated workers getting very sick or worse; or being sent home for several days to make sure they haven’t contracted the virus. Most every state facility is under-staffed, so outbreaks have the potential to crush the system, particularly with the highly virulent delta variant spreading like wildfire.
By far, the least vaccinated state agency is the Illinois Department of Corrections, which is infamous for being chronically under-staffed for decades.
Of IDOC’s 34 facilities, only seven had a staff vaccination rate above 50% by late July, which is still too low.
Two IDOC facilities had staff vaccination rates in the single digits: an abysmal 7% at Lawrence Correctional Center and 9% at Vienna Correctional Center. Vandalia CC was not much better at a mere 10%. Pontiac CC was at 14%, Robinson CC was at 18% and Graham CC and its reception and classification center were at 21%, as was Shawnee CC. Six prisons had staff vax percentage rates in the 20s, ten were in the 30s, five were in the 40s, three were in the 50s and just four were in the 60s.
Taken as a whole, 44% of IDOC staff were fully vaccinated at that point in time. Just 45% of the state’s Development Center staff at the Department of Human Services are vaccinated. At the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, 64% of veterans’ home employees are vaccinated, but just 50% at the Anna Home are vaxed and 58% are vaxed at the Manteno facility.
By comparison, as of Aug. 5, 61% of all Illinois adults were fully vaccinated.
“The government has resorted to ‘vaccine shaming’ its public safety employees rather than convincing them that getting an immunization is the best course of action,” said Terry Trueblood, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Illinois Secretary of State Lodge 95, after Secretary of State Jesse White announced that employees must either be vaccinated or tested every two weeks.
But, according to the state, about 70% of prison inmates who are in or who have moved through the system have been fully vaccinated. Eight-two percent of all patients and residents in Department of Human Services facilities are vaccinated. Between 96 and 100 percent of Department of Veterans’ Affairs home residents are vaccinated, depending on the facility. And 62% of young people currently in the Department of Juvenile Justice system have been vaccinated.
It’s time the state stopped waiting on front-line workers to come to their senses while drawing a government paycheck. Too many of AFSCME’s members are not part of the solution, they’re “part of the problem.”
And the FOP can complain about “vaccine shaming” all it wants, but logic and reasoning haven’t worked nearly enough. Not even money has worked. The state rolled out a special cash-and-prizes lottery program just for workers in those four agencies to try to increase vaccination rates. On-site clinics were set up to make it more convenient for employees to get their shots. The union also admirably tried to help convince its members to vax up. The carrots didn’t work. The stick is what’s left.
Pritzker gave the workers two months to comply, likely because he wants to talk details with union leaders at the bargaining table. But AFSCME would do well to remember what the late AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said just last month when explaining why the AFL-CIO supports vaccine mandates: “You have to know what’s around you.”
AFSCME and other unions face a choice between preserving the life and health of their members or standing up for the imagined “rights” of those who would knowingly spread a fatal or debilitating disease to those around them. Something has got to change.
* Meanwhile…
NEW: President of the American Federation of Teachers @RWeingarten calls for support for vaccine mandates on #MTP
Weingarten: “As a matter of personal conscience, I think that we need to be working with our employers, not opposing them, on vaccine mandates.” pic.twitter.com/2yOIxhUzdB
The Chicago Cubs signed Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White to an honorary Major League contract. “I thank the Chicago Cubs and Chairman Tom Ricketts for their heartfelt gesture today. I am humbled and proud to have signed an honorary major league contract with the Cubs.” pic.twitter.com/6DrhOHkIXQ
