* Gov. Pritzker had this to say today. Please remember to pardon all transcription errors…

Throughout this pandemic I’ve said and Illinoisans know that the battle against the virus has been fought to protect public health, of course, and to [fight] the economic damage that this virus has done to jobs and businesses has really been devastating. National projections show some industries will begin recovering in the reasonably near future. Still others may take longer. While workers and their families are hurting, federal relief has helped in the short run, and the state’s support systems have provided a safety net to address the immediate financial pain. From early on, my administration has worked to support our residents and small businesses by banning residential evictions providing help to pay rent and utilities, delaying tax filing deadlines, expanding unemployment eligibility and instituting loan and grant programs to support small business owner.

That isn’t enough. We must do more. The legislature must convene so that we can begin to put our financial and economic house back in order, even as we battle this terrible virus. The General Assembly needs to pass a comprehensive plan to support families, small businesses and small towns. The Congress is looking at supporting the states and we need to make sure that we are supporting the people who make our economy go.

In addition to significantly increasing rent assistance for families and working with banks on mortgage forbearance, we need rent and mortgage assistance for small businesses to provide grants and loans for businesses, starting and restarting tax credits for small business job recovery industries and businesses left out of the Federal PPP should be first in line. And we must pass a law to distribute funds to small cities and towns to support their need to fund first responders and basic services that could fall apart from COVID related revenue losses, as we work to keep our residents safe and gradually reopen businesses. I hope the legislature will act expeditiously to support jobs and economic recovery.

* On to questions for the governor. A number of mayors in DuPage County would like to reopen their towns, they say they don’t want to be lumped into the Chicago area, they claim they are much safer and are able to reopen safely and Phil Rogers of NBC 5 says the mayor says their numbers show different trends, that it really is not appropriate for them to be included together…

Sure well referencing here to the comments that I made yesterday on this exact topic, and that is that everybody would like to draw a different map. There’s no doubt about it.

You know we wish that there was a federal plan, a national plan for reopening, but there isn’t. And so it’s been left to the States. We in fact decided that it was very important for us to operate in a regional fashion. Some people would like to open city by city or town by town, county by county that’s 102 counties, 1200, to 1300, towns and cities across the state of Illinois. It was important to us to make sure that on a regional basis we were, in fact, noticing the differences from one area to another. And we did that, but remember the regions are drawn in a way to take into account hospital availability. To follow the metrics for each region, appropriate to a region that is near a large metropolitan area like Chicago. Many people that live in DuPage County work in Cook County, travel between the two and that’s one of the reasons why there’s a danger that people who live very nearby, because as they travel to and from work they have the potential to carry the virus, back and forth.

So, I appreciate that everybody’s got a different idea, but I will say this, that if you follow the regional metrics at each of our regions including the Northeast region which includes DuPage County is reasonably speaking on track, you know I mentioned yesterday, all of the other regions are on track to meet all of the criteria, and the Chicago and the Northeast region are very close, and it is a 14 day metric on the positivity number. And in fact, that number is heading south. So I would just keep an eye on that number and that will allow those areas to open up sooner. But take note that it’s a 14 day measurement for that.

* He was then asked several questions about surrounding states reopening faster than ours…

Let me start by saying that as governors in the Midwest or Midwest region we talk to one another, and our staffs talk to one another quite frequently. We are sharing ideas and making sure that we’re following best practices, it is different from one state to another. Indiana is a different state than Illinois. We have different concerns and Michigan’s different as well, so is Ohio. So each of us have different timetables. It’s again based a lot on at least for Illinois and for many of the other states, based on the health care metrics.

So we’re following, you’ve seen what we’ve put out as our restore Illinois plan is, if you look at what the President’s plan is where you would have to have all the parts dropping over a 14 day period. Ours, it’s actually somewhat easier to beat that plan would be. We might not open the state if we were following the President’s plan, Illinois might open at a later date than the one that is currently set in metrics and as I said that each state is a slightly different. And our Midwest compact is really about a shared set of ideas, and a shared set of principles for contemplating reopening doesn’t mean that we’re going to have exactly the same time a timetable deed, like I said to the state it looks like maybe the entire state will begin to move into phase three, the end of May, which is just a couple short weeks away.

* Are you concerned about people traveling to some of those states?…

I am concerned because I think that in many ways that opening too early or the, the potential spread of the virus in those states will affect our metrics in Illinois. So, I understand that people may cross over the border, but I think they should take into account the danger, the potential anyway, for the spread of the virus and their ability to carry that virus back over the border when they come back, bringing it to their family in their community, affecting not only the health and safety of people in that community but also the ability of that region to meet the metrics that we’ve set.

* What is the state doing to make sure there will be enough accessible, affordable and available childcare for people to return to work if phase three of your plan, even though daycares won’t reopen until phase four, and will children and childcare workers be required to wear masks and socially distance?…

We in fact have opened childcare, as I think Greg knows and others know, we put in place what we refer to as emergency childcare, which really was a downsized version of existing childcare facilities. We didn’t think it was safe and the doctors most importantly didn’t think it was safe to allow dozens and dozens potentially 100s of children to populate a single childcare facility. So what we did was sought out the creation of smaller emergency childcare providers. And there are 2500 of those, indeed more than 2500 now, many people continue to sign up to do that . Existing providers, they actually get paid more on a per child basis than they were when they were running their larger facilities. If we wanted to make up for the cost of having a smaller number of children in each class. So we believe that we will have childcare available to people who will go back to work with phase three. But we also have created a task force to make sure that we’re creating as much care as will be needed in that phase and beyond.

* On a daily basis you mentioned the models the science guiding your positions and policies, yet are these the same people who were wrong about the hospitalization rate, who said 40,000 people would be hospitalized in late April, but in actuality, it was 4800. Why not consult other models and scientists?…

Well actually Amy I think you missed the point of it. We have consultants, scientists and doctors all over the country. And we continually ask those not just in Illinois, but elsewhere.

Now you may have noticed that some of the models including one by the White House has changed quite a bit over time, the projections for Illinois were so much different. Over the course of the last two months, they’ve changed continually.

One of the reasons that the number of deaths and the number of cases has gone down in Illinois just because of the mitigation efforts that we put in as a result of what we could see were the projected numbers of projected cases the projected hospitalizations and deaths. So we knew that we needed to make the stay at home order, to build it in a certain way to make sure that we had base coverings required for example, which helps to bring down and bend that curve. So we’re actually doing quite well with the advice that we’re getting our models have been very helpful and as you will know every day that we have new information, it gets plugged into the model and it affects the shape of the curve. So it’s not, remember, I gave an entire set of remarksmaybe a week ago about the full understanding of how a model works so I would refer you back.

* Are there any state of Illinois plans to assist the landlords who are being impacted by missed rent payments, is the state in favor of proposed city relief rent, relief ordinances that would give renters a year to pay back rent for example?…

Well, I’m not sure the state is going to take a position on a city proposal, but here’s what we’re doing. We are providing rent relief at the state level through the Department of Human Services, and as well as utility [bill] relief. We also as you know have ended evictions in the state during this crisis. And we’ve also gotten a moratorium from the major utility providers, a moratorium on shut offs. So we’ve done quite a lot.

I think we need to do more and I’m calling on the legislature in fact when they get together to increase the amount that we’re providing for those relief programs, particularly for rent really, because there are so many people who are struggling right now to pay their rent. We also have to keep in mind, of course that there are people who are owners of a duplex let’s say and they’ve rented out half of that or they’ve rented out a room in their own homes to people and that was their primary source of income. And so for someone to simply not pay them for a period of time is a hardship for them. So we want to make sure that people can pay their rent, and we want to provide the assistance, necessary for them to do that.

Another question about individuals who’ve had trouble getting through to IDES.

* CDC waits to confirm COVID-19 deaths, but there’s a belief that Illinois assumes COVID-19 immediately. Why not follow the CDC guidelines and wait?…

Dr. Ezike: I think we’ve maybe addressed this issue. When the deaths are reported to us and if they have COVID-19 on the death certificate or on the data that we’re looking at, again we are reporting out the information that’s reported to us and we’re really turning it over pretty quickly, as we’re trying to give it the next day.

Sometimes after further review we will see that maybe like a motor vehicle accident, as I mentioned, or if it was a gunshot case a homicide case, we see that that was included in the numbers, you know, we would have to adjust those numbers. So we are trying to make sure that things that really are not at all related to the Covid diagnosis, we want to remove those. But again, in situations where someone had another illness. If they had heart disease, and then they went on to have a stroke or some kind of related cardiac, as you know, sick [garbled] is not as easy to separate that and say that COVID did not play a role in an exacerbation of an existing illness and so that one would not be removed from the account.

* Can you please respond to the continuing criticism of your restore Illinois plan. Former governor Bruce Rauner said, when did a policy goal shift from flatten the curve to keep everyone safe. What do you say?…

I aw what the governor said, what the former governor said and all I can say is that I’ll readily admit that a primary policy goal of mine is in fact to keep the people of Illinois safe.

* Vice President Pence has called for all nursing home residents and staff to be tested for COVID-19. He’s asking every governor to focus on this over the next two weeks. Will this be done in Illinois?…

We’ve been doing this for quite some time already. But I’ll turn it over to Dr. Ezike to talk about the progress that’s been made. I will say I was surprised to hear him call for it. Given that we’ve really been at this for some time and every governor that I’ve talked to frankly has been at the show. I’m not sure if it’s a timely call or a bit late.

Dr. Ezike: I’ll just echo that again. More than two months ago, we were in nursing homes testing. After even an initial case, we went in and tested the whole facility t two days later and the staff as well. So this is something that we have been trying to do of course earlier on there was a severe limitation of supplies, which made our efforts, we couldn’t be as comprehensive and as expansive as we can do more now. So absolutely we have been on that path for over two months, as we have been able to increase our capacity for testing we’re able to do more and more facilities so we are we are already are well on our way towards that goal.

* If we’re now going to peak around mid June and most of the state will likely move to phase three by late May, is it possible we may not come down off the peak, and just be in an extended plateau for the foreseeable future?…

It is of course possible that we could extend the peak. You’ve seen that the projections were that we would peak in late April and then that because, frankly, because we’ve done a good job of flattening the curve, it pushes out that peak and flattens it for a longer period of time. And here we are in about mid May. We’ve flattened the peak I mean, thank goodness because otherwise it would be going up. But my hope is that it will hit downward by mid June, I’d like to see that.

Dr. Ezike: I think understanding what we mean by peak is that there’s a top point right. And so if we just stay flat there’s no top point. So in effect your highest point will be where this plateau is and that’s what we want it to be. We want to know that this is the highest, a number of hospitalizations, the highest number of cases, and that we’re at the highest number of fatalities, we’ll see. And that from here we go down. So that would be a good thing. If that’s where we’re at and it’s hard to know if this is the top until we start heading down. And so, until we actually start the decline. We just know that we’ve been staying flat and so again we’re all hoping the same thing that we are absolutely at that plateau that highest point and that from here on, we go down, obviously, we’d rather stay flat for an extended period than see this plateau and then ascend to another level, but again we are, we’re following the data just like everybody else in the state is, and we are all hoping the same thing.

* The city is separating settings, prisons nursing homes, when determining the positivity rate. Will the state do the same?…

Dr. Ezike: Well I think it’s helpful for cities just set metrics for themselves and, as you saw, I think you know in one case a 30% positivity rate, another case of 15% positivity rate. Those are reasonable I think if you blend those together, as you know, you end up with roughly the positivity rate that we’ve said as a cap.

I will also say that as the city is focusing on these congregate settings as places that will have higher positivity rates, where you do need to focus attention and we’ve been doing that since the very very beginning of this crisis, because if you can bring down the positivity rates there, and you of course break down the positivity rate of the staff that works there, people come in and out every day. I’m going to take that virus if they were to contract it in a facility. they take it back into their communities so that more we can do to address those congregate facilities, the better that community will do overall.

* Do you have an approximate size for a state funded based relief package that you’re looking for from the legislature. And if you want them to move, additionally, why not call them into special session to do it?…

Well indeed I’ve been encouraging the legislature to do that. Remember that there are a lot of challenges for them, legislators. Just because you’re calling it a special session does not mean they will show up.

And they have to have confidence in the plan for showing up. And that means that the leadership, both Republican and Democratic, need to agree to a plan that’s been reviewed by the Department of Public Health. We want them to get together and you saw, I think there was a memo that ended up in the hands of the media that we provided to the leaders to show them how they could get together. But it’s important for the members themselves to agree on a plan, the leaders and the members, so that they’ll all want to get together. Remember there are a lot of people when you get the legislature together it isn’t just the 177 members, it’s the staff that they may need, all the very many other people who work in and around the Capitol the legislature is in session. As to the size of a relief package, working on that I have talked to members of the legislature about that.

It’s a common concern for us to make sure that we’re addressing the needs of families and small businesses. And I would just add that the size of a package will in part be dependent, in fact, it’ll be significantly dependent upon whether or not we are able to get relief from the federal government for the lost revenues of lost sales tax revenues and income tax revenues for the state that we’re still seeking and we believe there will be a package, and that it will be passed over the next two or three weeks

* What’s going on as far as adjusting your plans to fill the budget hole after that $1.2 billion bond issuance was postponed?…

Well the bond issuances, as you refer to, is simply working with the underwriters to make sure that they’ve got the right pricing and do it in a way that will affect the state in a positive way. So that’s still going and we expect it to complete.

But our focus here is on the overall budget for FY 21, where there’s a significant need for revenue. One of the things that affected the revenue for this year was the fact that we postponed the income tax deadline from April 15 to July 15, following the lead of the Federal of the Congress to do that. Remember that July 15 moves us into a new fiscal year. So the borrowing that we’re doing is really just a temporary borrowing that would then be paid back, based upon that income tax revenue that would come in three months later.

* Question about downstate in an uproar…

Well let me begin by saying that my job is to keep the people of Illinois safe and also to tend to putting back, the damage that this virus has done to our economy, making sure that our economy has the ability to grow. So I’m measuring those things very carefully and using experts to do it.

The vast majority of those counties and individuals, those business owners are not talking to epidemiologists, they’re not talking to scientists. In fact, they’re not relying on science in any way whatsoever to make their decision. I would just suggest to all of them that they are putting the patrons of their businesses, and the people who live in their counties or in their cities in danger when they simply break the rules break the law, in fact, and they’re, you know, decide that they want to go with alone. We are one Illinois, we are one state, we have four regions for the Restore Illinois plan, and soon enough regions across the state will have the ability to move into phase three. And so we’re going to keep focusing on the data and the science everybody should follow this data, and indeed I think you know we’re only about, 13, or 16 days 17 days away from the ability for many people to return to their jobs returned to their businesses. But I just want to remind everybody, this virus is still out there and is still killing people. Everybody wanting to go, you know, back and open up their businesses, and just put people at risk willy nilly, it’s a, take a look at the data, take a look at the science and recognize that we’re gonna have more people in the hospital and more people dying if they don’t follow the path of gradual reopening.

* The governor of Pennsylvania warned yesterday that counties who disobey state directives and reopen earlier than as the orders have been set up, which states, a lot of withholding of federal aid to those municipalities to those counties. Is that something you would contemplate?…

We would consider that.

You would consider the pass through function of the state to provide federal assistance to local municipalities, or to local municipalities cities, counties, if they don’t follow these orders?…

The state already provides a lot of support for cities and counties. And so I would just suggest that there are a number of enforcement mechanisms that are available to us. And I don’t want to utilize those. I have asked people to do the right thing and I want to point out that the vast majority of people in Illinois have been doing the right thing and I’m so very proud of that. And these people that you’re referring to are the outliers.

These people do not follow science or data. They’re just listening to you know partisan rhetoric, perhaps, and following their own instincts, but no science.

* Have you determined when state employees will be required to return to work from their normal work locations and not from home. And when that happens, will there be special requirements imposed, such as wearing masks, or maintaining business and in their offices?…

Well just in the same way that we looked at the non essential as we’ve referred to the businesses that will come back and phase three people who work in offices for example, and insurance companies or other consulting firms or other businesses that require an office.

We want to make sure that we’re doing the proper social distancing for state government workers too. And so we’re considering all the ways to do that we have teams of people were reviewing how that will work for state employees just as it will, how it will work from industry to industry. It is in those teams that were determining what the best practices are using the advice of our epidemiologists, and outside epidemiologist to make sure that we’re getting it right.

The governor then said that, “As of today, 68,000 Illinoisans have accessed the new PMA portal that since yesterday morning when it launched over 50,000 applications have been filed.” He was then asked a question which was actually a federal UI eligibility issue.

* In some of our downstate communities where of course we have public facilities like prisons mental health facilities congregates them and. Yesterday you said, I do see is that testing prisoners upon release because they would likely show symptoms in the days or weeks leading up to their release yet other states are finding huge percentages of asymptomatic people when widespread testing is done inside of prison is the state’s plan for testing at these facilities of staff inmates residents individuals being released, considering that these facilities could be an undetected source of spread and rural community that. And with that and as we move towards the next phase and reopening the state suddenly starts aggressive testing. It seems that that could also provide an adverse impacts our metric. Why not move to get a better handle on those now considering the status only posted about 2% of inmates?…

Well, I certainly if we have some limited tests available we would be testing absolutely everybody, every day.

The fact is that we have to make decisions about how to use those tests the ones that we have, because as Molly is pointing out when we’re testing even 29,000 is reported today or 20,000 on average, the fact is that there’s no way that you could test enough to know exactly whether somebody, leaving a congregate setting or in a congregate setting, from one day to the next might not, or might contract over at 19. What we are doing though is using all the best practices that the CDC has offered us to make sure that we’re following whether people are symptomatic whether if they’re asymptomatic following them for a number of days taking temperatures, you know, checking on their well being. And even if, as they leave, even if you’re tested somebody, as they were leaving a facility that alone wouldn’t actually tell you whether that person might turn up to have COVID-19 in the days for, so I would just suggest that you know we’re what we’re doing, within the prisons, is to try to make sure that we’re containing the virus. And keeping our staff, very importantly, our staff safe as well as those who have comorbidities who may be prisoners or staff.

But, you know, we’re managing this as best we can and when we have more testing, we will be expanding the amount of testing that gets done. All across not just congregate settings, but remember as you open up the economy. It’s important for us also to test people who are going to work, and make sure we have the ability to test people when we think that they may have been exposed. you know, several days.

* Have you spoken to Speaker Madigan and President Harmon and told them the General Assembly should return. If not, will you have the date been set, or even a week of session been set should it be before the end of May?…

I have spoken with all four leaders about getting the legislature back together. I have spoken with President Harmon as you asked and with the Speaker of the House, and encouraged them to do so. And yes I think it would be best if they could get together before the end of May, so that we can get the very necessary things done like our budget.

* You announced the peak for COVID-19 may not happen until June. The McLean County drive thru testing facility was supposed to be open until the end of May there. It was just announced that it’s closing early…

It’s important to note that there are multiple locations that have been available to people in Bloomington. It’s one of the reasons though there were only about 26 people a day going to the drive thru that these drive throughs in the rest of the state were getting 500-600 cars a day. And so we want to make sure that the most effective locations are chosen, and make sure people have the ability to get tests and since Bloomington does have a number of locations already available. We want to make sure that we find other drive thru settings that will allow us to capture more and more tests.

* Your plan requires regions to have downward trends and positivity rates for 14 days and downward trends and hospitalizations for 28 days. Why must that region begin on May 1 if a region has already met those conditions? Why must it wait? Please explain the science…

Well, two things that I would respond to but here. One is that actually we don’t require downward trends we require stability.

So, that’s what we looked at and as to the 28 days versus 14, and May 1 as a start date. Remember we changed a lot in our stay at home order on May, 1. We opened up, parks, we opened up golf courses again with guidance and safety conditions to make sure that people are safe in those settings we opened up elective surgeries in all across the state. And we also allow retail to provide delivery and provide curbside pickup and such. So there were a number of changes that were in that stay at home order, and we wanted to make sure that we had a solid baseline.

I also would point out that that if we had followed, as I said earlier in this conversation, if we followed the guidelines that were set up in the White House plan and then have been adopted in some other states and required a downward movement of all those numbers, we might not be reopening some parts of the state, or any parts of the state really until perhaps the middle of June or later, but instead we looked at the hospitalization numbers we looked at the hospital capacity, said that if we could maintain stability, we would have some comfort that we would be able to absorb any surge that might take place in any if we move into phase three and I expect that we will move into phase three for most of the state on May 29.

* Has the state received any more equipment for quick COVID test results either from Abbott or its other competitors? When will the state see greater available availability of tests especially these rapid tests, since your restore Illinois framework in part, depends on the expansion of testing?…

The expansion of testing is hugely important and people don’t give these machines away very often just to be clear. When we’re acquiring machines they’re expensive to acquire. The federal government did provide us with 15 of these rapid ID now testing machines. And so we’re deploying those in the appropriate locations. We weren’t given the cartridges that are required, only about 100 or so, 120 I think cartridges for 15 machines. And so we had to go acquire many more of those, so that we could use those machines, there was another problem with those machines that I wanted to point out, it was just resolved over the last week or so and I spoke with Dr Birx who’s worked with the President and others, and Dr. Fauci. But Dr Birx and I spoke about what was happening with the ID now machines was there was a kind of a lot of false positives and false negatives coming from it because people were not instructed to use it in the way that would be most effective really those machines need to not have people providing a sample and then having that sample transferred in VTM to another location you really want to do it in the location that the machine is in and not use viral transport medium, because that has an effect on these tests that wasn’t a problem for a little while. That was a problem nationally. I spoke with governors all over the country. We’re having that issue. It has been cleared up by Abbott, and so those machines are nowmuch more useful for us, and more reliable.

I want to also add that you don’t have to buy multimillion dollar machines, or millions of dollars of machines, necessarily, if you can arrange partnerships with those who own the machines and operate them as we have with hospitals like literary and and others because they have capacity. They often buy machines so that they have them on site so they can use them in their hospital for their patients or before COVID-19, they weren’t really taking a lot of outside tests and running them. In this era in this crisis, it’s critically important that we use all the capacity that we have that we had before was no supplies and no help from the federal government to get supplies. Now we’ve been able to get supplies on our own mostly, and we use those supplies in partnership with the hospitals, using their capacity to get testing done addition to all of that again for spinning up for testing. There have been companies like Red Lotus that have expanded significantly there in Pekin Illinois we talked about them the other day and one of our daily updates, as well as other private labs that have expanded provision of tests, and again we’re partnered with them to make sure that they’re getting the swabs and specimens, so that they can run those tests. We really have done I think our team has done a good job of using the available capacity, without getting help with supplies, we’ve been able to spin up the supply chain and make those partnerships ourselves.

* They’re getting a lot of calls in Peoria asking what the current rules for dental offices are. What types of services are they allowed to offer right now?…

We just issued over the last couple of days new guidance for dental offices and they’re able to do quite a lot under that guidance. I would direct you to the IDPH website for an issuance of that guidance that just came out.

* Restaurant owners are asking why the general public can walk into grocery stores touch produce walk around but can’t social distance at a restaurant at 30% capacity, what’s your reaction?…

It’s a great question. Remember that grocery stores are open because they’ve been deemed by the Department of Homeland Security as essential purposes. So are pharmacies.

And I know that people look at that and say well gee I see a lot of people in a grocery store. But how come we can’t have a lot of people in xyz retail or other business.

The real reason is because remember when you put a stay at home order in place and you limit people’s ability to access businesses, it’s because you want people to stay home. Because you want people not to have those interactions or at least to limit the number of those. It is unfortunate that people were packing into grocery stores, not wearing masks sometimes and that’s still happening to some degree. There’s very little you can do except to have the grocery stores enforce six foot rules, enforce the mask requirement the face covering requirement. And it’s not to punish anybody else but, if Homeland Security had not said that grocery stores should be open, I’m not sure how people would be able to stay at home and provide meals for their family.

* Is this a new high for cases today?…

Dr. Ezike: Yes, in fact it is. We have not had in the 4000 range before, but we also have never had tests in the 29,000 range. So again, there is a functionality there that as you test more you’re going to get more positives from within those additional tests.

* Given baseball owners have a plan to start games in July, what do you tell Major League Baseball players want to haggle over salaries, even if all the safety precautions are taken?…

Well, I realized that the players have the right to haggle over their salaries, but we do live in a moment where you know the people of Illinois and the people of the United States deserve to get their pastime back to watch anyway on television if they’re able to come up with safety precautions, as has been suggested by Major League Baseball. That works. I hope that the players will understand that the people of our United States need them to recognize that this is an important part of the of leisure time that all of us want to have during the summer, to watch them play baseball, to root for our favorite teams. We need that back, that normalcy back. And I hope they’ll be reasonable as they negotiate. But I must say I’m disappointed in many ways that players are holding out for these very very high salaries and payments during a time when I think everybody’s sacrificing.

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