* The governor started with an update on unemployment insurance. Click here and scroll down to the update for more info.

On to questions. On the IDPH website as of today, all regions are currently meeting the state’s metrics to move to the next phase of reopening May 29, I believe, obviously, this might change, but can you confirm that that is the case, including the Northeast Region?…

Every region is so far meeting all the metrics. Remember that they need to go through a time period and there needs to be an averaging of those metrics during that time period. You can see all the metrics on the IDPH website, but that is true and that on the website you can see that Chicago and the region surrounding Chicago has now dropped dropped below 20%, in terms of positivity rate and that’s a gating factor for moving into the next phase.

Remember to pardon all transcription errors.

* Why should counties and cities, they feel as if they’re being punished by being lumped in with Cook County. The Suburbs want to separate. I’ve spoken to several mayors, we’ve also seen several law enforcement, Kane county a couple of different counties are saying they’re going to ignore the rules, what any wiggle room any tweaking of the plan to let some of these regions perhaps be redesigned?…

You know the last question sort of begins to answer this question. The answer to the last question does anyway you can see that every region is poised, if it maintains the metrics that attempt now to move into phase three in a few short days, I mean literally we’re talking about 14 days. So I think it’s useful though to note that, look, you could have drawn regions in virtually any which way and I’ve said it before, but I want you to pay attention to the reason that we drew the regions, as we did.

Start with the fact that people who live in one area don’t necessarily stay in that one area the entire time. They travel outside of the county that they’re in or the city that they’re in and the immediate area and they do that frequently and so we had to account for that as we were drawing regions. Secondly, IDPH uses 11 EMS regions. We asked our medical teams to kind of give us their feedback about how the regions interact with one another and, when they need to move around resources and how do those regions interact. They came back to us and told us that these are the pairings of regions and that worked well together. And then finally, there’s almost any way to draw this map, there are people you know who live in one area who say, Gee, I don’t know anybody who’s been who’s contracted COVID-19, and therefore, you know, my little area should be led out of some region. But the reality is this is about healthcare resources and making sure that if something bad happens like a surge. [And then his wifi cut out.]

* Will the state take any additional steps to enforce the stay at home order now that more County Sheriff’s are refusing to step in?…

You’ve heard us talk about that yesterday. So the answer is, I’d refer everybody to what I said yesterday about the fact that not only should people follow this, but there will be consequences. Also know that there were leaders in the legal community this morning that spoke about the challenges that will be brought to those local law enforcement to local governments and to businesses that are open, because they’re putting people at risk, they’re making their communities unsafe, and they’ll be subject to liability as a result.

* Leader Brady from Bloomington is asking for perhaps a meeting to sit down, wants to have hearings wants to play a role in the Restore act, a public hearing….

Well, as you know, not only am I isolated right now because of the COVID-19 positive case in our office, but nobody is really getting together in groups of 10 or more. It’s against our stay at Home Rule. And so I’m very happy to have conversations with members of the opposite party, and with members of the General Assembly. And I’ve been doing so every single day. Indeed, Leader Brady has my number, I speak with him quite frequently. So there’s no lack of communication. He knows where I stand, I’ve answered questions, my staff has answered questions. His members have had, we’ve you know responded by giving data and information whenever asked so not sure what he’s missing out on. It sounds like grandstanding to me.

…Adding… From Leader Brady…

My caucus and I take the lives of our residents, and their livelihood, seriously. The public has a right to know how the decisions impacting their lives are being made. This is not about grandstanding; this is about transparency.

* Amy Jacobsen WIND radio says more and more county leaders and local mayors are disregarding your plan to reopen or moving ahead with their own plans. You and Mayor Lightfoot are threatening to use force to ensure compliance, but at the same time, you’ve released 1000 inmates from prison including 64 convicted murderers. Do you see the disconnect between these two positions? And with the cases in prisons leveling off, will you then be returning those inmates?…

Well that’s a loaded question if I ever heard one. Let’s start with this. Nobody is, you know, sending police forces in to break up activity across the state. What we are doing is enforcing, using lots of different methods by enforcing using our licensing capability and our ability to pull licenses for businesses. We’re using our ability to make sure that that you know the towns that are following this and funded properly and those that don’t, don’t. And so there are lots of ways in which we can enforce we will continue to work on that enforcement. And we would just once again suggest I would suggest towns and leaders elected leaders do your job. Lead. Be the person that they elected, who is supposed to be protecting your community, don’t fall prey to the rhetoric that’s out there that says oh let’s just open up this virus doesn’t affect anybody like me. You’re wrong.

* Are the requirements for favorable positivity rates for 14 days and hospital admissions for 28 days ironclad. In other words, in the midst of this. There is one bad day, does it do reset the clock to zero, or do they have to go another 14, or 28, without a hitch [the reporter should check the IDPH website, but whatevs]…

You can. There can be days and there are days in which the other metrics are above or inaccurate or above the caps that are set. This is about averaging over a period of time in a given region. If there is a county with bad numbers, will it go ahead and move to the next phase, with its fellow counties in that region. In other words, let’s say Scott County, had a really bad potential positivity rate, but the rest of the central region was okay with Scott go ahead and move up because it is included in the region with the better numbers. Remember that this is about health care regions and the availability of health care. Look at each of those metrics. You’ll take note of what we were attempting here. And so I would just remind everybody that, yes, there will be some areas that will be a bigger hotspot than another area within a region. We didn’t want to hold back a region because there’s one hotspot. What we do want to do is make sure everybody in that region has access to healthcare. Remember, in addition to the COVID-19 patients go into hospitals, we also have people who have heart attacks, people who have gunshot wounds. People have other medical needs that need to go in the hospital so we’re trying to make sure that healthcare is available to everybody, even while so many people are being hospitalized for getting sick from COVID-19.

* Businesses looking to open at the end of the month for your phases need to know what the guidance will be. When will that guidance be available so that they can notify suppliers what goods and [garbled] they need to open?…

So we have been working with industry leaders across the state, industry leaders in each of the many industries that exist in the state of Illinois. We’ve also asked industry to provide us with their best ideas about how to keep our patrons and their employees safe. And so all of that is being worked on now and we’ll certainly probably over the next two weeks or so be releasing the information that will be useful to people in each and every of those industries and where there might be something unusual situation that’s unique. Perhaps we want those people to come forward and seek guidance and IDPH will provide.

* A 12 year old Chicago boy is the youngest to die from COVID in Cook County, did have underlying conditions. Any advice for parents who may be concerned when they hear this news?…

Dr. Ezike: I’m sure every parent, everybody in Illinois is saddened to hear this news. Of course every, every life loss is a tragedy, but it is somehow just more emotional when it’s a child just at the beginning of their life. I know that there’s no way that we can predict who will have some of these most severe outcomes. I just, I think that’s why we’re trying so hard to work on the prevention and just try to limit the amount of people that get infected. Please remember that this is a continuum. We know the virus is there, we can’t change it or we can affect the number of people who can’t track the virus and that’s why staying at home. It does save lives in itself, it buys us time to learn more about this disease, and to hopefully find some cures buys time to have a slower rate of infection so that more people might have antibodies, we really just want to slow the progression down and that means slowing the death. I can’t do anything to necessarily stop every death but you can’t blame us for trying, and I again for parents out there again, the same methods, stay at home as much as possible. If you’re out please try to maintain the social distancing the physical distancing the six feet, wear a mask, clean frequently touch surfaces. Don’t forget about the emphasis on washing our hands for at least 20 seconds with soap. If using hand sanitizer is a percentage of at least 60% alcohol, all of these things will help decrease the number of fatalities that we will see, they sound mundane, but they are tried and true and will work.

The next question had a bad audio connection and the answer was too garbled to post. Sorry.

* Is it true there are confirmed cases of COVID-19 tracked back to the recent open up Illinois rally at the Thompson center. Does anyone know if that is correct?…

Dr. Ezike: I don’t have that information but I can try to see if I can assemble that for tomorrow if that is no.

* Hospital staff have told him that a number of cases where individuals who tested positive refused to be admitted, despite urging, what is the protocol?…

Dr. Ezike: We cannot force individuals to be hospitalized. People can refuse hospitalization just like they can refuse to be transported, even when 911 is called. If someone wants to leave the hospital in the middle of their stay, they can leave against medical advice. So again, I want to say that they would still continue to be tracked by the local public health department in terms of following up on symptoms, we would still do the contact tracing to identify people who they may have been in contact with it that hasn’t been done, but we can’t keep people in the hospital against their will.

* Is it true that Chicago hospitals originally plan to take down their drive up testing temps. They’re now changing that plan because there has been an uptick in cases…

Dr. Ezike: I cannot speak to that. I don’t have that information.

* Can you clarify some statements you made yesterday about looking forward to meeting up with legislators in Springfield. When is your self isolation over, how will you meet with the leaders and do you plan to get another test before you go?…

Well right now my staff and I are isolating is at home as you know and we’re working with IDPH to determine how long we have to do this.

I’d like to return to Springfield, probably, mid late next week for the opportunity to be there during session. But I just need to get sign off from the experts, from the doctors.

And what would that look like would you be in your governor’s office and would people be coming in or would it be zoom meetings, how do you envision that?

I think, you know, I’d be taking the same precautions that I generally do during this pandemic. I’ll spend time in my office. I’ll sleep overnight at the executive residence. So, it’ll be I think reasonably, or at least you know those two locations are reasonably well known to everybody, where I would spend time so you know that’s where you’d find me.

* As of yesterday we were about to surpass Queens County as the worst. The most cases nationwide. Just checking in, if we did surpass that and also if there’s any lessons to be had from Queens County since they’re kind of going on a downward trajectory now…

Dr. Ezike: I just want to make sure that everyone is clear how that has happened, increasing our testing. No one in the country has captured all of the cases of COVID-19. You have captured cases for which people have been tested and not everybody has been tested so I think it’s a credit that we have been able to ramp up testing throughout the state. And this is getting us closer to actual numbers but it’s falling, far, far, far below the actual numbers. We obviously want to promote testing, we want to get as many people tested as possible and to do that we have to keep ramping up our capacity, again, recall that less than two weeks ago we were testing about resulting about five seven specimens per day. And recently, we’ve had several days over 20,000. So that’s a significant jump, which appropriately has resulted in a significant increase in the number of cases identified. I don’t want to get that point lost that the number of cases that we’re identifying is proportional to the number of tests, and we’ve increased our cases because we’ve increased the amount of testing we’ve done and we hope to keep doing that. So you actually will see more cases because we will continue to ramp up our testing.

* A black Chicago mom with the COVID-19 diagnosis was sent home with her newborn and died soon after. With black maternal death rates in this country already alarmingly high what can be done prevent another tragedy like this from happening? Will there be an effort to ensure that all expectant mothers not only be tested but provided care if they’re found positive?…

Dr. Ezike: That is obviously, it’s a significant tragedy. Any case of maternal mortality is something that is thoroughly investigated as part of our maternal mortality review committee. We know that we have a high rate of maternal mortality and that is one of the thrusts of the public health of our agency that we have a very robust review committee. We’ve put out a landmark study paper that we put out a year, I think, October of 19, and we are looking forward to putting out the next one in short order. This is an important issue that we are addressing, while COVID is going on that’s another issue that public health has to continue to address in terms of maternal mortality rates of maternal mortality in in communities and mothers of color.

* A World Health Organization doctor said today coronavirus is not going anywhere and may end up being something like HIV, that we will have to live with. They also want the mental health crisis linked to [garbled]. What do you think of this assessment, is it possible that phase five will happen with the virus still among us?…

Dr. Ezike: We will have to see. Again we’re taking this slowly. I think it’s maybe under appreciated what we’re saying when we call this a novel Coronavirus. We don’t exactly know all the characteristics of this virus we’re dealing with. Of course, there’s search, and we’re learning from what cases have been seen around the world. We’re learning from the cases that we have even here, stateside. But as we learn more again this new pediatric inflammatory syndrome is being appreciated newly so there are new things that we find out almost every day, just two weeks ago the CDC added some additional symptoms that seemed to be coming up with increased frequency to suggest that they should be included as symptoms when you think about this a little bit, 19, we see that potential potentially in pediatric cases, they might have a different presentation, there might be more vomiting and diarrhea so again we are learning as we go. And so we need to have that time to be able to learn. So being able to forecast and project. A too far ahead is difficult. We’re trying to use the best information we have coupling it with information that we have from other viruses that may be similar, but even viruses in the same family of the SARS virus the MERS virus, those have shown quite different syndromes quite different, infectivity quite different fatality rates. So again we are trying to get as much information as we can and that’s why we have to follow the science and keep learning to make the best informed decisions that we can.

* You’ve talked about this before but people are getting angry people are sad there’s all sorts of emotions going on. Is there anything that you can tell people in Illinois, any sort of advice of how people should be coping through this crisis?…

Dr. Ezike: Again, this is an unprecedented situation, not just in terms of amount of lives lost in this very short period of time, but for those who are living, the the this complete disruption of their life. And for many their actual livelihoods, people are experiencing this virus in very different ways, and I am the first to to acknowledge that someone who’s sitting at home and trying to shelter in place but it’s still getting a paycheck is not at all in the same situation as someone who’s sitting at home, who’s not getting a paycheck, and is worried about paying their car note or their, their apartment rent or other bills or fighting for their family so the mental health toll that that will take that that is taking is significant and you know there are some supports that are available through the state, we have hotlines that are available we have some resources on our state websites. We’re hoping that people are able to connect with others not physically, but if there are no phone calls, if there are virtual connections we hoping that people are using the electronic methods that we’re becoming more familiar with, to be able to connect with people, tele health and tele mental health, being able to use this for telepsychiatry. That is a very effective method of still getting the help that is needed. I think telehealth lends itself very well to dealing with mental health issues. And so I’m encouraging people, whether they want to seek help from a from a psychiatric provider a mental health provider a social worker, if they want to reach out to people in their faith community, please avail yourself of all of those options because it is a real thing. This is causing a mental health strain on many people and some people much more.

* You’ve talked about this before but people are getting angry people are sad there’s all sorts of emotions going on. Is there anything that you can tell people in Illinois, any sort of advice of how people should be coping through this crisis?…

Again, this is an unprecedented situation, not just in terms of amount of lives lost in this very short period of time, but for those who are living, the the this complete disruption of their life. And for many their actual livelihoods, people are experiencing this virus in very different ways, and I am the first to acknowledge that someone who’s sitting at home and trying to shelter in place, but it’s still getting a paycheck is not at all in the same situation as someone who’s sitting at home, who’s not getting a paycheck, and is worried about paying their car note or their apartment rent or other bills or fighting for their family. So the mental health toll that will take that is taking is significant and you know there are some supports that are available through the state, we have hotlines that are available we have some resources on our state websites. We’re hoping that people are able to connect with others not physically, but if there are no phone calls, if there are virtual connections we hoping that people are using the electronic methods that we’re becoming more familiar with, to be able to connect with people, tele health and tele mental health, being able to use this for telepsychiatry. That is a very effective method of still getting the help that is needed. I think telehealth lends itself very well to dealing with mental health issues. And so I’m encouraging people, whether they want to seek help from a from a psychiatric provider a mental health provider a social worker, if they want to reach out to people in their faith community, please avail yourself of all of those options because it is a real thing. This is causing a mental health strain on many people and some people much more.

* I have a couple of questions about the positivity rate, and I would just like to say as a reporter I think that a lot of people don’t understand what it is, and how it’s being equated what I was told is that it’s on a seven day rolling basis, is there just a good explanation to everybody to understand the positivity rates of the regions…

They can find that on a daily basis. It’s on the IDPH website. You can take a look at the positivity rates for each region. And again it’s, the goal here is to keep it below 20%. Now, as of today every region is currently on track to do that there’s a rolling time period. 14 days for measuring that. And so that’s a, it allows us to make sure that, again, that we’re not experiencing a major surge. So that’s the purpose of that positivity rate.

People don’t understand at the north, I guess in the Northeast Region without a lower than 20% rate, just they’re trying to understand the clock the process…

It’s essentially a rolling average 14 days for the positivity rate and as it happens, the Northeast region was the only region. That wasn’t meeting that metric for a number of days going back. Back to May one. Now, as I have seen as you can see, it’s below 20% on a rolling 14 day basis. And I think overall if you look at the trend trend for the state and the trend for that region is downward. So I think that’s a very good sign that as of the end of a 28 day period on May 28 the end of May 28, that it’s highly likely that on that metric, the Northeast region as well as the other regions will meet that mark and then you know you’ve got to look at the other marks. But it looks to me like they’re all on track to meet the other marks to move into phase three.

* We’re hearing other states and cities tell school districts they need to start revising down their budgets for the next school year, we have not heard that in Illinois. Why?…

There’s going to be work on the state budget that’s done, there’s already been a lot of work by the working groups in Springfield, or that are in the General Assembly rather, and my administration has interacted with those working groups so our hope is though that we’re going to get kind of a unified voice, the need for federal support for the state, and in particular state of Illinois. I hope that Republicans will step up, people in the General Assembly elected officials, Republicans will step up and advocate for the state with their Republican colleagues in Congress, both in the House and in the Senate. Even in other states, hearing from Republicans maybe Republican senators will respond better than hearing from Democrats and we really should speak with one voice on this to the federal government. But all of that will have an effect on whether or not we’re able to fully fund schools to meet the evidence based funding, so that you know we all want to meet. And the schools so that they’ll be ready for the fall. So that’s one of the reasons why you haven’t heard a call for massive reductions, is because we’re right in the zone here where the House of Representatives voting on a package the senate considering that packages in the General Assembly in Springfield meeting next week, it all is happening in just a few week period, we’ll know much more in the next few weeks.

* How has your revenue projections for the fiscal year 2021 changed since you provided an update last month?…

The revenue projections have not changed a whole lot. There were, there are adjustments to our assumptions. With regard to costs around Medicaid, for example, that have adjusted but the revenue projections for 2021 really changed a whole lot. Remember, we projected a fairly significant downturn. And so that’s what the budget making processes considering.

I’ll take note that, that Tina just called on her colleague from a rival Chicago newspaper, which I think shows a lot of character on her part.

* Looking past the worst part of the pandemic, do you get a sense we’ll see a population shift from big cities like Chicago to smaller communities that aren’t a petri dish for COVID-19 and other viruses?…

It’s a great question Shia. I haven’t considered that, but I must say that there has been an overall trend, or at least a belief that there will be a trend of population movement from urban areas toward suburban and exurban and rural areas over time, in part because of the expansion of broadband. Of course we’re doing a lot of work on here in Illinois and our rebuild Illinois program infrastructure program invests $420 million in running broadband everywhere. So I think that will be the thing that really moves people, and less so worry about a future pandemic. I think at the moment, we’re in this moment where people aren’t going to move around I don’t believe the midst of this phase three phase four, hoping to get to phase five relatively quickly if we can. But I do think there’s a trend in the direction that you’re describing I just think it may be for other reasons.

* Do you have any concern the Illinois Supreme Court will follow the lead of Wisconsin and strip you of your stay at home powers?…

I don’t think so, we’re well within the laws that exist in Illinois to have a disaster declaration. And if there’s an ongoing disaster ongoing emergency, Illinois, as there is nationally and has been declared nationally we’ll continue to work within the law to make sure that we’re keeping people safe.

* In as few words as humanly possible, can you please explain the science behind why Illinois, unlike almost anywhere else, uses a 28-day hospitalization metric, instead of a 14 day metric? Thanks in advance for brevity and succinctness…

Thanks for the advice, Rich. Remember that the phase that we’re in, phase two, began May 1, many changes as a result of the fact. So as a result of the need to move into a new phase, you make changes from one phase to another. It means that we have to take a measure of how we’re doing within that phase so that we don’t have a surge that will overcome our healthcare system.

I will add that our plan only requires stabilization of these metrics, unlike the plan put out by the White House, like plans that were proposed in other states require 14 days of downward movement. Ours only requires stability. And if you look across the board in the state, we are, roughly speaking, the stable, moving downward, likely that we will move into phase three in a shorter period of time under the metrics that I put forward and not under the metrics that the White House put forth.

* Can you speak to the reopening plan your office has reached with the Catholic Church? Have any other denominations reached out to perhaps similar plans?…

Well the Catholic Church developed their own plan that fits well within the requirements of the stay at home order that we have in place. And talking about their plans, with regard to phase three also fits within the restore Illinois plan. So, we advised them when they asked us for our advice and that was it. And I’m actually very pleased, I think they did an excellent job with a plan that they put for their churches. Other church leaders have also reached out and we’ve tried to provide guidance. Each one has a different set of concerns about the rituals of their particular denomination. And so we’ve provided the advice from our Department of Public Health.

* Some businesses and regions including Southern Illinois and a county or local officials, health departments should make decisions about whether they should open not the state or the governor. Who has the authority or who should have the authority now the county or the state?…

While we’re under a pandemic, globe-wide pandemic and emergency disaster declaration, there’s a reason why those exist in the law. That’s because you want to make sure that we’re marshalling all of our resources as a state, dealing with something this large. And so, it is important that the state set ground rules that the executive orders, under the existing law set the ground rules for us in order to deal with it. And guess what, [the curve] is flattening and that didn’t just happen by accident. It happened because we put executive orders in, and people have followed those orders. So I would just suggest that, for now this is working. People need to follow it as we move into phase three and phase four. Very important that we not over burden our healthcare system that we keep people safe.

And, of course, it’s my goal for us to get back to normal. I want you to know for every region to everybody in the state of Illinois, to be doing precisely what they’d like to be doing right now, but we are facing a very difficult circumstance.

One last thing to say, officials have been very collaborative with us, the local County Departments of Public Health, many of the county board chairs across the state and mayors. It’s the loudest folks that you’re hearing from and not the vast majority of the people in almost 1300 municipalities that exist in the state, or the hundred and two counties. It’s just the very loud voices of people who are being defiant and ignoring science and data.

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