* Press release…

The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and Cook County Department of Public Health (CDPH) today announced a fifth Illinois resident has tested positive at the IDPH laboratory for coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The specimens have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for confirmatory testing. The fifth individual is a Cook County resident in his 20s who flew into Chicago O’Hare Airport earlier this month after traveling to Italy. The individual acquired the infection while in Italy and is hospitalized at Rush University Medical Center in isolation. Public health officials are identifying and contacting all close contacts.

“The state of Illinois is working around the clock to contain COVID-19 and educate the public,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Public health officials anticipated there would be additional cases and we will continue to implement robust measures to contain the virus while also preparing for further transmission. The risk of COVID-19 to the general public in Illinois remains low, but we encourage the public to be vigilant and take extra care with the normal precautions you should take during flu season.”

The CDC has confirmed one of the recent presumptive positive cases and we are still awaiting results on the other case. Both remain in home isolation and are doing well. At this time, the exposure route for the third and fourth cases is not known. Both individuals recently traveled to another state, but health officials have not been able to link them to a COVID-19 confirmed case in Illinois or the other state. Therefore, because IDPH has been unable to identify a point of exposure for these two cases, IDPH believes it is possible these cases may be due to community transmission in Illinois.

“While we expect to see additional cases, we are not seeing widespread transmission of the virus in Illinois and we believe the risk to the general public remains low,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike.

OK, but read on.

* The Atlantic…

We know, irrefutably, one thing about the coronavirus in the United States: The number of cases reported in every chart and table is far too low.

The data are untrustworthy because the processes we used to get them were flawed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s testing procedures missed the bulk of the cases. They focused exclusively on travelers, rather than testing more broadly, because that seemed like the best way to catch cases entering the country.

Just days ago, it was not clear that the virus had spread solely from domestic contact at all. But then cases began popping up with no known international connection. What public-health experts call “community spread” had arrived in the United States. The virus would not be stopped by tight borders, because it was already propagating domestically. Trevor Bedford’s lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, which studies viral evolution, concluded there is “firm evidence” that, at least in Washington State, the coronavirus had been spreading undetected for weeks. Now different projections estimate that 20 to 1,500 people have already been infected in the greater Seattle area. In California, too, the disease appears to be spreading, although the limited testing means that no one is quite sure how far.

In total, fewer than 500 people have been tested across the country (although the CDC has stopped reporting that number in its summary of the outbreak). As a result, the current “official” case count inside the United States stood at 43 as of this morning (excluding cruise-ship cases). This number is wrong, yet it’s still constantly printed and quoted. In other contexts, we’d call this what it is: a subtle form of misinformation.

This artificially low number means that for the past few weeks, we’ve seen massive state action abroad and only simmering unease domestically.

* The federal government is going back on its pledge to test lots more people…

The Trump administration won’t be able to meet its promised timeline of having a million coronavirus tests available by the end of the week, senators said after a briefing Thursday from health officials.

“There won’t be a million people to get a test by the end of the week,” Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida said. “It’s way smaller than that. And still, at this point, it’s still through public health departments.”

Scott and other lawmakers said the government is “in the process” of sending test kits out and people still need to be trained on how to use them. The entire process could take days or weeks, they said.

* Only two people tested in Sangamon County so far…

Two Sangamon County patients tested negative for coronavirus over the weekend, public health officials confirmed.

Sangamon County Public Health Director Gail O’Neill said that two people exhibited fairly standard respiratory symptoms and had either recently traveled outside the country or been in close contact with someone who had. But the tests came back negative.

Though others have been monitored for symptoms, O’Neill said those have been the only two test administered in the county thus far.

* And if/when the virus does catch hold, it’s not pretty…

Parents keep their children inside. Few people shake hands anymore. More than two dozen firefighters remain in quarantine. Restaurants and hair salons are close to empty.

Such is life in Kirkland, Wash., the suburb just east of Seattle known for its folksy downtown and spectacular lakefront views, but now above all as the U.S. epicenter of COVID-19.

Of the 11 U.S. deaths from the coronavirus epidemic, eight were residents of a local nursing home that is struggling to care for others who may have been infected. An additional death occurred at a Kirkland hospital. […]

On Monday, the city reported that two police officers and 27 firefighters — a quarter of its Fire Department — had been placed in quarantine after being exposed to patients from the nursing home.

And…

Students are now out of school in South Korea, Iran, Japan, France, Pakistan and elsewhere — some for only a few days, others for weeks on end. In India on Thursday, all public and private schools through the fifth grade were ordered closed through March in the capital, New Delhi, affecting more than two million children.

In Italy, suffering one of the deadliest outbreaks outside China, officials said Wednesday that they would extend school closures beyond the north, where the government has imposed a lockdown on several towns, to the entire nation. All schools and universities will remain closed until March 15, officials said.

On the West Coast of the United States, the region with the most American infections so far, Los Angeles declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, advising parents to steel themselves for school closures in the nation’s second-largest public school district. Washington State, which has reported at least 10 deaths from the outbreak, has closed some schools, while on the other side of the country in New York, newly diagnosed cases have led to the closure of several schools as well.

The speed and scale of the educational tumult — which now affects 290.5 million students worldwide, the United Nations says — has little parallel in modern history, educators and economists contend. Schools provide structure and support for families, communities and entire economies. The effect of closing them for days, weeks and sometimes even months could have untold repercussions for children and societies at large.

* Some limited help is on the way…

State and city health units are in line to get some help dealing with the coronavirus epidemic—financial help that is.

A deal reached [yesterday] between Congress and President Donald Trump will deliver at least $14.7 million to the Illinois Department of Public Health, with an additional $8.7 million headed to the Chicago Department of Public Health. […]

In a separate action, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released another $2.75 million to the state and $1.75 million to the city for coronavirus surveillance and infection control.

* And the state’s new sentinel surveillance program should help us figure out what’s going on…

Starting today or Friday, Carle Foundation Hospital will begin screening as part of a new sentinel surveillance program that could indicate whether the virus is present in local communities among people who don’t have an apparent connection — for example, due to their travel history.

And since the hospital serves patients from 41 counties, the surveillance has the potential to signal the presence of the virus in more than just the Champaign-Urbana area.

There are already “a handful” of possible Champaign County coronavirus cases under investigation by the Illinois Department of Public Health, according to Champaign-Urbana Public Health District Administrator Julie Pryde.

But the best way to be prepared for a community spread of the virus is to collect more data, and as early as possible, she said.

Agreed.

…Adding… Oy…

HANNITY: We have a report today the global death rate at 3.4%, and a report that the Olympics could be delayed. Your reaction to that?

TRUMP: Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number. Now, this is just my hunch, and — but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it’s very mild.

Um, both can be true.

* Related…

* Sick CPS students ‘will be sent home immediately,’ district says, as coronavirus fears spread

* Glencoe Public Works Employee Under Voluntary Quarantine After Exposure to Coronavirus: The employee “was exposed to a different individual, who was subsequently confirmed to be infected with coronavirus,” the statement said, but was not showing any signs of the virus and was self-monitoring under voluntary quarantine at home. The employee was also in contact with their healthcare professional, officials said.

* Spreading coronavirus infects city’s economy, mayor’s budget: The mayor is also counting on $163 million from raising ambulance fees paid by private insurers and getting federal approval for reimbursements administered by the state for ambulance transports for low-income patients on Medicaid. That hasn’t happened yet — nearly five months after the mayor said that approval was “imminent.” Lightfoot has said repeatedly she remains “very confident” the feds will green-light the ambulance plan, despite her repeated attacks on President Donald Trump.

* WIU prepares for coronavirus outbreak: He said the McDonough County Health Department is working alongside them, to screen anyone who has traveled to an infected area.

* Coronavirus is testing CEOs everywhere: Unlike past crises, this one is rooted not in familiar economic factors such as a credit bubble, but in epidemiological forces beyond the ken of the average CEO. Few, if any, are qualified to make judgments about how many people are likely to be infected, how many will die, or when the virus will subside. Without answers to those questions, predicting economic consequences becomes all but impossible.

* Not Enough Face Masks Are Made In America To Deal With Coronavirus

* Washington state urges patience as Covid-19 test delays stoke anger: “We have had patients presenting here, angry that they cannot be tested for COVID-19, yelling, cussing, throwing their dirty mask at us and even spitting their secretions on the floor and walls on their way out,” Ruedebusch, who works at an urgent care clinic in the Seattle suburb of Monroe, wrote on Facebook.

* Coronavirus imperils airlines: Many slash flights; U.K. carrier Flybe goes under

* From Broadway to Chicago’s theater district, coronavirus attacks our human need to gather together

* Ultra’s March festival canceled over coronavirus fears in Miami, sources say

* The Gig Economy Has Never Been Tested by a Pandemic

* Coronavirus fears change art of shaking hands in US capital