* WTVO Rockford…
During President Trump’s rally in Janesville, he struck a chord with many Illinoisans who are frustrated with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing restrictions.
“I’ll tell you what…Illinois could use a new governor,” the president said, met with thunderous applause.
Rockford is in Region 1, which has a 7-day average positivity rate of 11.1 percent. Winnebago County’s rate is 12.3 percent. Perhaps those fine folks might wanna look inward.
* Tribune…
Facing a resurgence of the coronavirus in Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that President Donald Trump and his local allies are in part responsible for rising case numbers and positivity rates in the state.
“He’s modeling bad behavior. He doesn’t wear a mask in public. He has rallies where they don’t encourage people to wear masks in public,” Pritzker told “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper. “Truly, this is now rhetoric that people understand, particularly in rural areas in my state, ‘Well, the president doesn’t wear a mask; we don’t need to wear a mask. It’s not that dangerous.’ The truth of the matter is that it is very dangerous.”
The governor appeared with Tapper a day after Trump slammed him during a rally north of the border in Wisconsin, which is seeing one of the worst COVID-19 surges in the country.
“Illinois could use a new governor,” Trump told supporters in a wide-ranging 93-minute speech in Janesville. “That guy doesn’t know what’s happened. We gotta open up that state. They gotta open up that state. Kids have to get back to school.”
* Sun-Times…
Asked by Tapper to reply, Pritzker said, “the president has made it nearly impossible for states to open up any more than they are now.
“… This pandemic has been around now for seven to eight months, and without much help from the federal government we’ve been fighting it off.”
Pritzker said Illinois is impacted by the higher rates of infections in the border states of Wisconsin, Indiana and Iowa. […]
“So it is dangerous right now. We want people to wear masks. We want people to socially distance. We need to make sure that we have certain mitigations in place, and, of course, we’ve already opened up much of our economy. But we have to maintain certain capacity limits, and make sure that our people are safe and healthy,” Pritzker said.
* NBC 5…
“He’s modeling bad behavior. He doesn’t wear a mask in public. He has rallies where they don’t encourage people to wear masks in public,” Pritzker said. “But it is the president’s allies in our state, all across the state, who are simply saying to people, ‘Don’t pay any attention to the mitigations, don’t follow the rules.’ Indeed, there are bars and restaurants which are restricted from expanding their indoor service that are just ignoring the rules, and they’re just filling the place up.”
* Daily Herald…
And he defended the state’s performance, saying, “This pandemic has been around now for seven to eight months, and without much help from the federal government, we’ve been fighting it off. Illinois has one of the lowest positivity rates among the Midwest.”
He said that the state is bordered by Wisconsin, which has a 27% test positivity rate. “Ours is about a fourth of that,” he said.
Tapper pointed to things the president has done right, including ramping up efforts to find a vaccine, and pressed Pritzker for specifics.
Pritzker responded, “Well, you just saw one of them, which is he’s modeling bad behavior. He doesn’t wear a mask in public. He has rallies where they don’t encourage people to wear masks in public.”
* WBEZ…
Dr. Robert Murphy, a professor of medicine and infectious disease at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said lifting even more restrictions would be disastrous right now.
“Everybody is tired of it,” Murphy said of the pandemic. “And so you have that pressure to just open up, and that’s just going to make everything worse. And from an epidemiological standpoint, I can’t support that. And I can’t recommend that. It’s a big mistake. Every time you do that, you pay with a life. You’re going to kill somebody.”
Murphy agrees with Pritzker that pandemic fatigue is playing a role in the recent surge facing Illinois and much of the nation. But Murphy said other factors include the reopening of schools to in-person classes and the relaxation of restrictions regarding bars and restaurants.
Last month, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced bars that don’t serve food can reopen, and restaurants could serve more indoor customers. Since then, infections have steadily grown. The city has a 5.2% positivity rate and is seeing a weekly average of 508 cases per day, according to data released on Friday. […]
But Murphy said local officials can gain control over the outbreak without having to resort to another stay-at-home order by mandating face masks and placing limits on social gatherings, like in Spain, where gatherings are now limited to six people. And Murphy signaled optimism, saying that the U.S. will be in much better shape a year from now when a vaccine may be widely available.
“I’ve studied pandemics, and they all end,” Murphy said. “Every one of them ends. The question is: How long does it take to end? And how many people will die?”
…Adding… Sigh…
