* Gov. Pritzker…
In addition to those measures, today I am proud to announce an important new measure to support our residents and most small businesses, and to soften the immediate economic impact of this moment. Illinois will delay our tax filing deadline from April 15 to July 15, aligning our tax day with the federal government’s and giving our millions of taxpayers three additional months to file their individual returns refunds will continue to be distributed in a timely fashion.
Remember I’m using Otter for transcription so typos are inevitable.
* More assistance…
By Friday, our small businesses will be eligible for a share of $90 million in state emergency assistance through three new programs.
First, all of our small businesses outside of Chicago, that’s businesses with fewer than 50 employees, and under $3 million in 2019 revenue in every industry are eligible for our new $60 million dollar Illinois small business emergency loan fund, allowing up to $50,000 loans with five year low interest. Repayment terms require loan payments won’t begin for six months, offering crucial time for business owners to begin recovering from the economic impact of COBID 19. DCEO, the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, in partnership with our Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has established a loan loss reserve of $20 million to back up the financing provided by our state charter banks. I want to thank the Illinois Bankers Association and the community bankers Alliance for their partnership in launching this program […]
Our second Small Business program also focuses on our suburban and downstate communities, specifically on areas with low to moderate income populations. We’re launching a $20 million downstate small business stabilization program, which will provide emergency grants of up to $25,000. These are grants of $25,000 to small businesses that are being served by Office of Community Development.
And lastly, our hospitality businesses have experienced some of the most significant hardships during this crisis. To help address the significant challenges of our bars and restaurants in small hotel companies, DCEO retooled existing funds to offer support to our state’s hospitality industry through this crisis. Our new hospitality emergency grant program will offer $14 million to help hotels bars and restaurants support their payroll and rent, as well as job training and technology for operations like pickup and delivery, which for now have become central to many restaurants staying open.
* More…
I’ve asked each of those federal institutions to offer all borrowers multi-month forbearance, to reduce the strains of this period and offer millions of Americans financial relief. They’ve offered this not only to Illinoisans now, but to qualified mortgage holders nationwide, please contact your mortgage servicer or Fannie Mae directly for more information. On a similar note we’ve sent letters to the three national credit bureaus, asking them not to punish people’s credit ratings for the instabilities of our time.
* Comptroller Mendoza is caring for an ill mother and couldn’t be at the event, but she put out this release…
Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza issued the following statement regarding today’s announcement that Illinois will extend the deadline for state income tax filing:
“While extending the state’s tax filing deadline to July 15, 2020, creates some needed relief for taxpayers, it also results in a significant delay in revenue for the state in the short term. Traditionally, April is the state’s best revenue month. The receipts that come in from Illinois taxpayers in April allow us to address bills from low-revenue-producing months such as February.
“In addition to the short-term revenue delay, given the COVID-19 crisis and necessary emergency response, we, like the rest of the country, can anticipate a future loss in revenue from lower payroll and sales tax receipts this fiscal year. It is too early to measure the financial impact.
“Postponing the state tax filing deadline will be a challenge to the state and our office’s cash-management duties, but it is a responsibility we are prepared to meet. Over the last three years, the Illinois Office of Comptroller has proven itself to be well-experienced in managing fiscal crises, and we are prepared for the demanding times ahead.
“We will continue to make critical payments for debt service, state payrolls, K-12 schools, our social and human service providers, and required pension payments. We will prioritize state payments to our hospitals, doctors and everyday heroes on the front lines fighting COVID-19.
“I appreciate Governor Pritzker’s incredible leadership through this ordeal. It’s been an honor to work with him and Treasurer Frerichs, and we will continue to work together, utilizing every budget and statutory tool available to us to get Illinois through this crisis, this budget year and into the next.”
* The governor went on to praise the Senate’s stimulus bill and then said…
Finally, I just want to say that I know that there are people all across our state that are making real sacrifices by adhering to our stay at home order, which is in its fourth day. And I know that, for those of you able to remain home. It feels like you’ve been there forever.
I want to express my sincere gratitude to all of you, the sacrifices that you are saving lives. Truly. I’ve also said a lot about the amazing work that our doctors and nurses and our first responders are doing, taking a risk every day going to work, to protect us. But I also want to recognize our grocery store workers our custodians and our Metro and Pace and CTA workers. The factory workers who are producing essential medical equipment and the food on the grocery shelves and the warehouse workers and truck drivers who make sure that our goods get to their destination. They are some of the unsung heroes in this fight. Those who do the work behind the scenes to keep this state safely moving forward.
* IDPH Director Ngozi Ezike…
Right now, we know of the counties [where the virus was found], but we know that the number of counties will grow as well. Continue to stay home and continue to practice social distancing. Protect yourself, protect your loved ones and protect your entire community by following the same instructions you’ve been hearing every day. Wash your hands for 20 seconds with soap. Cover your coughs. Please stay home. Clean frequently touched services. Together, we are protecting all of Illinois and decreasing the number of fatalities from this extraordinary event.
* Treasurer Michael Frerichs…
Our state investment portfolio is about $14 billion, about the same amount it was late last year when news of the virus began emerging. The amount is the same because state law prohibits investing any portion of the $14 billion state portfolio in the stock market. […]
The State Treasurer’s Office has launched a bridge loan program to help them push through these uncertain times. We have made 250 million dollars available to banks and credit unions across our state, and it historically low interest rate of almost zero. We agreed to deposit a quarter of a billion dollars from the state’s portfolio and increments of one or $5 million with financial institutions across the state. In turn, they have agreed to turn around and use the money to help small businesses and nonprofits, pay rent purchase supplies, and to make payroll. Our goal is simple. We understand businesses slowed. We do not want businesses to close forever. We want them to be able to make payroll and pay their own bills is easier to ramp up a business that is struggling than a business that has shuttered.
On a smaller scale, last week my team issued emergency rules for our unclaimed property division. We raised the ceiling for our Fast Track program from $500 to $2,000. As a result, we’ve been able to push out nearly $3 million in additional unclaimed property to more than 3000 people across our state in just the last week.
Finally, we have rolled over $200 million in investment notes or loans [to help] the state comptroller pay medical bills. My office can invest up to $2 billion in the state of Illinois bill backlog at a reduced market based rate, as opposed to nine or 12% late payment interest rate penalty. During this time of need, this authority not only saves money, it gets more cash out the door to our healthcare providers. We are continuing our discussions with the Comptroller and the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget about ways to support the state’s cash flow using legal tools we already have.
* President of the Hotel Lodging Association Michael Jacobson…
The damage is worse than the impacts of 911 and the 2008 recession combined. Unfortunately, with that level of decline, there’s a human impact when it comes to the 10s of thousands of layoffs that we’ve seen in our industry in just the past several days. We expect that number to hit more than 120,000 total layoffs in the coming weeks. Small businesses that operate our hotels are hurting and deciding every day whether or not to close their hotels altogether. Our employees are hurting and hoping that they can just keep their job.
That is why we commend the governor for announcing this new fund dedicated to providing grants to small hotel owners in an effort to retain as many staff as possible. These relief funds will provide critical resources to hoteliers to avoid as many layoffs as possible at their property.
* OK, on to questions for the governor. Will program spending have to be put off because of the tax filing delay…
The answer is nothing that is a vital service or critical service for people across the state will be put off. In fact they’ve been significantly enhanced I would say across the board. Making sure that we’re providing more resources for those who are homeless, making sure that we’re providing food for people who are you know kids in particular but families where the kids aren’t able to go to school now and so they need meals during the day and frankly, some of them are getting breakfast and lunch at schools who are providing meals across the state and funding for that. So there’s a lot that’s going on and I would say nobody should be suffering from a lack of service.
Director Ezike said the state checks PPE to make sure it’s still usable after a question about how other states are reporting the federal government is delivering expired PPE equipment.
* People are still having trouble accessing IDES’ online unemployment system. The governor said earlier this week that the problem was fixed and it’s obviously not. The governor said the reporter was 100 percent right…
As I’ve said this is an unprecedented number of people who are applying same time, and our DoIT, our department of innovation, technology, our state CIO, have been on this every day they’re trying very hard to expand availability they are expanding the availability. But it is true that we remain overloaded. People are going to have to be patient at least for now. Over the course of this week those changes are coming online. I can’t guarantee that it’s going to be easy for everybody who gets there, especially if people show up all at the same time during work hours for example. But you can go online, any time of day or night. And so I would suggest to people that perhaps finding off hours to go online to make that filing will be much easier for you and easier on the system. So, you know, hang with us here we’re going to make changes that are making it better. But it is true, it’s not working the way that I want it to either.
* Do we know how much Illinois and local governments in the state will get from the congressional stimulus bill…
We don’t yet know. I mean let me add to everybody that that bill hasn’t actually passed. There was a negotiation, there’s an agreement. We believe that it will pass the Senate and the House and get signed by the president but we don’t exactly know. The bill is being read and evaluated by really everybody around the country, but particularly by our federal director and our federal representatives to determine what we might get in the state. A lot of this is population based I should say. And so, you know, Illinois being the sixth populous state in the United States and allows us to get a larger percentage than many other states.
* How are all of you holding up in this? Yesterday it sounded like the situation was wearing on some of you…
Not sure which of us they’re talking about, um, we’re all holding up just fine thank you for whoever gave that question. Who cares about everybody who’s standing here and also my staff who are working long hours. We all are, but my staff especially. I’m so grateful to them because really they’re getting here early in the morning, they’re here late late at night, they’re solving problems for people all across the state and giving of themselves in ways that I don’t think anybody imagined that they would need to when they went into public service. So I’m grateful to them and everybody seems to be doing just fine. We’re also making sure that they’re healthy, giving them, you know room to stay at home. For many of them, but we’ve got some core staff we’re here just all the time. Those who are at home I might end are working non stop, nevertheless, so I’m grateful to them as well.
* Director Ezike…
It is, it is hard. I’m a doctor, I’m a mother and I just buried my father last month. And so when I think about people who can’t do what I did for my father last month I feel it very real as to what people are going through in the sacrifices that they’re making I think for, for all of us.
* Pritzker…
I’ll just add that for all of us I think I have a friend who I spoke with today who’s whose wife and children, all have fevers.
All are experiencing some symptoms they’re staying at home. They’re on their way I hope to recovery. But, as you can imagine my friend’s concern for his family was great. So, you know, all of us, I think, are aware of how serious this situation is and are touched by somebody, somebody at work, somebody at home, somebody in your life, no doubt, you know, that has contracted this or is affected by it. So I appreciate the concern by whoever asked that question.
* There’s been a fair amount of back and forth with the White House over PPE. Are you concerned that President Trump will play politics and not send shipments to Illinois…
I would hope not. I really would hope not, I, you know, I’m talking I’m working with the professionals at the Army Corps of Engineers. I spoke with the Secretary of the Army yesterday, the Secretary of Defense. So many people are working hard to help us address the challenges that we have as a result of COVID 19. And so, you know, my expectation is that people in the federal government level one to do the right thing.
So, we’re continuing to protect the people of the state of Illinois and I’m going to do whatever it takes, frankly, to get that job done. And sometimes, when I have to be critical in order to get something done I’m going to be doing that. You’ll hear me do that, but I am not somebody who normally, you know, likes to, take on a confrontation if I don’t need to. But I will, and especially on something this serious.
* Is it possible to get PPE from China now?…
There is a big challenge. I mean you know it’s the relationship between President Trump and the Chinese government has not been good.
And so there’s actually been over the course of this process, over the last few weeks there are challenges getting things out of China.
And as you know, that’s where a lot of PPE is manufactured, so yeah we’re overcoming those challenges wherever we need to and acquiring PPE really from anywhere that we can. T\here are manufacturers here in the United States and as you heard me the other day, there are manufacturers here in the state of Illinois that we’re acquiring from so you know it’s it’s coming in, it’s not as fast as I would like. I’d rather the federal government had taken this over and doing it to themselves for everybody, but you know we’re getting the job done.
-30-
14 Comments  
|
Please, don’t be a Covidiot
Wednesday, Mar 25, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Times like these bring out the best in some people and the worst in others…
30-year-old [Ro Nguyen] had just watched a movie at a Streeterville cinema with a friend on March 12 and was strolling down East Grand Avenue around 8 p.m., the two of them marveling at the deserted streets.
As they headed toward the Red Line station, Nguyen said a man walking nearby saw them and yelled out, “F— China!”
Then the man spat on Nguyen, he said. The saliva splattered on his jacket. […]
Asian American organizations last week launched the #WashTheHate campaign on social media, highlighting stories of coronavirus-related racism. The Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council and Chinese for Affirmative Action groups also started collecting reports of incidents of hostility against Asians.
Go read the whole thing.
* The Sun-Times ran that goofy Politifact piece we discussed yesterday, but gave it a proper headline…
Fact-check: Postponing primary not in Pritzker’s power
* More from the Sun-Times…
A 52-year-old Niles man allegedly charged at police officers during a DUI arrest and coughed on them while yelling, “Now you have the corona!” police said.
Grzegorz T. Kuprowski faces a felony count each of driving under the influence and battery of an officer, according to a statement from Niles police Sgt. Tony Scipione. […]
During a DUI test, Kuprowski became upset with the officers and started coughing on them, saying “get away” and that he had “corona bacteria,” Scipione said.
Dude is such a Covidiot that he doesn’t know the difference between a virus and bacteria.
* Ugh…
City Hall reports that the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection has fielded 190 price gouging complaints this month, up from only two complaints during the same period last year.
Not surprisingly, most are for household or health items such as toilet paper, tissues and hand sanitizer. Some are related to food and drink, presumably bottled water. BACP evaluates each complaint based on relevant factors, such as prices prior to the Illinois Disaster Declaration and prices at nearby stores, and will impose fines of up to $10,000 per offense.
Earlier this week, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said price gouging complaints had also ballooned statewide in March.
* Press release…
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is calling on the country’s top online marketplaces to crack down on price gouging amidst the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Raoul joined a bipartisan group of 33 attorneys general, led by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro along with co-leading Attorneys General Hector Balderas (NM), William Tong (CT), and T.J. Donovan (VT), in sending a letter today urging the companies — Amazon, Craigslist, eBay, Facebook and Walmart — to quickly implement preventative measures on their platforms to ensure that consumers don’t get taken advantage of during this public health crisis.
“We believe you have an ethical obligation and patriotic duty to help your fellow citizens in this time of need by doing everything in your power to stop price gouging in real-time,” the letter reads, in part.
The letter follows an analysis by U.S. PIRG Education Fund which revealed that existing monitoring on Amazon’s platform was not preventing significant price hikes. In particular, the price of most of the hand sanitizers and masks rose at least 50 percent higher than the 90-day average. Since then, more than 267,000 Americans have signed PIRG’s petition calling on Amazon to protect consumers from price gouging.
The analysis is here.
* Anyone can sue anybody for anything, but if this nurse’s claims are true it’s totally unacceptable behavior by Northwestern…
A former nurse at Northwestern Memorial Hospital filed a lawsuit alleging she was fired after warning coworkers that masks the hospital provided did not adequately protect staff against COVID-19.
Lauri Mazurkiewicz filed the suit Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, naming the hospital and several employees as defendants, the lawsuit states.
According to the suit, the hospital began accepting and treating patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in March, allegedly exposing Mazurkiewicz and others to the virus.
Instead of distributing N95 masks, which are effective at preventing the wearer from contracting the virus, the hospital allegedly provided staff with “less-effective” masks, the lawsuit claims. The hospital allegedly also prevented its employees from wearing N95 masks.
* Tribune…
Chicagoans were ordered to stay at home starting last weekend and, according to a company grading social distancing, the city’s getting an A.
Both Cook County and the state of Illinois have high marks as of Tuesday on the “Social Distancing Scoreboard,” an interactive project based on GPS location data collected by the company Unacast that roughly measures whether or not people are heeding the advice of officials to “flatten the curve” of the spread of the coronavirus.
The scores were determined by the change in average distance traveled compared with before the coronavirus outbreak. If residents are staying put aside from the occasional trip to the grocery store or pharmacy, the dip in travel would be apparent in the data.
A more than 40% decrease leads to an A, with grades dropping from there. Anything less than a 10% decrease — or an increase — ends in an F.
Counties scoring an “F” included Effingham, Cumberland, Bond, Union, Johnson, Pulaski, Jefferson and Clark. Grundy scored a “D.” Here’s the map…
…Adding… And if you need further convincing…
More here.
…Adding… Hey, I have an idea. Let’s endanger most of our loyal customers…
* Related…
* CDC doctor: Rural areas shouldn’t let guard down as big cities bear brunt of COVID-19
40 Comments
|
* From an email to House Democrats…
Good morning, members –
Please be advised that the session days scheduled for next week will be cancelled. Regarding the committee deadline for House bills, which was previously extended to April 3, that deadline will be extended to April 24. The 3rd reading deadline for House bills will be extended to May 8, which will now be a scheduled session day. Note that these and other deadlines will be reviewed and extended as needed moving forward.
As I indicated in previous communications, the session schedule is “in flux,” and members should be prepared to return to Springfield to address urgent matters, including during the weeks of April 5 and April 12 (the legislative spring break).
Furthermore, we are planning to have another conference call for House Democratic caucus members on Monday, March 30 at 9:30 a.m. Discussions on budget-making and the hospital assessment program are ongoing this week – members should anticipate receiving a status update on these matters during the Monday call.
Finally, the Office has been working on a Google Drive folder that contains all the various pieces of information that’s been shared by the Governor’s Office and others. The intent is to make it easier for you to navigate all the quickly changing information on various topics. We will continue to update that folder with new information on a daily basis – you will find that each file is dated, so you can quickly see how recent the information is. You can view that folder and its contents through this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16CgavsCW6YqWLMB2G_-RXOm0GCrgXSmQ?usp=sharing
I would encourage you to share this link with your district office staff.
Take care and be well,
Jessica
Jessica Basham, Chief of Staff
Office of the Speaker
Illinois House of Representatives
*** UPDATE *** Press release…
Illinois Senate President Don Harmon has canceled the Illinois Senate’s scheduled session days for next week. The 59-member Senate was scheduled to be at the Capitol on March 31 and April 1 and 2.
Harmon informed Senate Democrats on a caucus conference call Wednesday, part of an ongoing effort to keep members and staff informed during the COVID-19 public health emergency. He said senators and staff continue to examine legislative and procedural priorities so that when the legislative session resumes, the Senate is prepared to act efficiently and effectively.
“We are going to have to figure out what is critical and what is time-sensitive,” Harmon said.
After next week, the Senate was not scheduled to be back at the Capitol until April 21. The Senate President asked members to keep their calendars clear for possible return dates.
Faced with a growing pandemic, Senate President Harmon first called off session days earlier this month to comply with public health recommendations to protect senators, staff and the general public that comes to the Capitol.
“For now, we are taking it day by day and urging everyone heed the advice of health care professionals by practicing social distancing, regularly washing hands and avoiding all unneeded travel,” Harmon said.
3 Comments
|
* From the governor’s press conference…
In February, we were among the first states to bring our own state laboratories online, providing us with critical early capacity. At the time we were able to run around 50 tests per day. Today we could do nearly 2000 tests per day from all sources with our state labs now running 600 tests per day in all three locations, Chicago, Springfield, and Carbondale. A lot of work has gone into building up our testing capacity and there’s still a lot more work to be done. On Sunday and Monday we began drive through testing at for state and federal facilities. The Illinois National Guard opened our first entirely state-run drive-through testing facility in northwest Chicago. The Harwood heights community based testing site. This site is designed especially to collect specimens from our healthcare workers and first responders and at current capacity. They can collect 250 specimens per day. Senior members of the US Department of Health and Human Services were out to survey that site this last weekend and they called our setup a national model that they hope to replicate in other states. […]
Over the last few days federal HHS has also set up sites in Bolingbroke North Lake and Joliet with private partners Walgreens and Walmart. These sites can run close to 100 tests per day as is and up to 250 each with expanded staffing here in Illinois. Our residents also have access to four commercial labs and 15 hospital labs that in total average about 1500 tests per day on top of our state lab output. That’s of course on top of the 600 per day that we run at our state labs. IDPH is working with some hospitals to stand up their own new labs, providing positive specimens to hospitals for validation, so they can come online faster. As we speak labs at places like North Shore hospital and Southern Illinois University are expanding their capacity with additional equipment and supplies, with an expected additional capacity of 2805 daily tests in two weeks. That will bring our in state testing to more than 4300 per day.
Now, even with this rapid expansion, we still need 10s of thousands more tests to get an accurate picture of our state, that’s within our reach. Though standing up additional hospital lab sites will be required and mobile testing sites will be required across the state. And we’re doing that with a continued consistent delivery of necessary supplies such as reagent and viral transport media we can get this job done.
Of course, nationally and here in Illinois, we are beyond the moment where testing alone can be our primary weapon against this virus. We can’t just test, we have to treat. It’s true that the vast majority of people will recover from COVID 19 on their own without hospitalization, and without a specific therapy.
One aspect of that is our healthcare workforce, those on the frontlines fighting COVID 19 every day. And I’m very proud to say that since my call to action this weekend for those qualified to join the fight. We have had hundreds of nurses and doctors and other health care workers reach out to us and let us know that they are interested in helping the application went live yesterday and in just 24 hours, we’ve already received 180 applications from individuals ready and willing to rejoin the healthcare workforce.
…Adding… From a press release…
Hospitals across the state are meeting the current need, and the state is building additional capacity to treat patients that may need care in the future.
As of March 23, data reported to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) showed 12,588 non-ICU beds, 1,106 ICU beds and 1,595 ventilators available in hospitals across the state. The current capacity of the state’s health care system as of is shown in the table below.
* Impact of stay at home order…
I want to take a moment now to provide you with a fuller picture of what we could be dealing with in the near future. As I’ve said, You deserve honesty and transparency on the gravity of our situation, and the reasoning behind the aggressive measures, like the stay at home order that I’ve put in place in our worst case scenario projections. That is without the stay at home order, in one week we would need over 2500 more non ICU beds and 800 ICU beds, than we have in existence in the entire state today. Further still in two weeks, we would need over 28,000, additional non ICU beds and over 9400 additional ICU beds. That’s untenable.
Again, I’m using Otter for transcription, so expect typos.
* Triage tents and closed hospitals…
IEMA has deployed 49 triage tents, 40 outside of Cook County to set up triage units outside of hospitals to safely and efficiently evaluate potential COVID 19 patients. In total, 66 of our over 200 hospitals statewide have set up triage tents with IEMA, or on their own. IEMA is currently working with 26 additional hospitals to set up triage centers, and my team and I will make sure that each and every one of those hospitals, has what they need to get a triage center going. […]
IDPH, IEMA, the Illinois National Guard and the US Army Corps of Engineers are in the process of investigating closed hospitals that could temporarily reopen to support our COVID 19 response. In a worst case scenario surge the state would turn existing hospitals into almost entirely COVID 19 response hospitals, moving non COVID patients to other hospitals including these re-outfitted locations.
* Ventilators…
The number one difference between a standard bed, and a COVID equipped bed is a ventilator. Right now in Illinois we have about 2200 ventilators all across the state of which 1600 are currently available. I n the worst case scenario projections that I discussed earlier, we would need over 4100 more ventilators to outfit our ICU beds within two weeks. Again, that’s a projection based on no protective interventions. My team and I are pursuing every option to increase our state’s supply of ventilators including working with scientists and experts in Illinois and beyond to pursue innovative new equipment options.
* White House…
Yesterday I spoke with President Trump to walk him through Illinois’ immediate needs, millions of N 95 masks, and hundreds of ventilators just in the near term. President Trump promised assistance and yesterday afternoon. The White House notified us that we will be receiving 300 more ventilators and 300,095 masks from FEMA in the coming days. On that call I also urged the president to invoke the defense production act. I know I sound like a broken record, but if I have to stand here every single day until I’m blue in the face and advocate that the federal government fully utilize this act, then I will.
This is the reality, there is a finite supply of critical resources available around the world right now. There is an enormous supply of governors and countries trying to get those resources. We need the full might of the federal government to obtain and allocate things like ventilators and PPE. I know there are businesses out there right now working on turning production toward these critical needs and I’ve been vocal about how grateful I am to the manufacturing community for the most part, which is stepping up to try and help, but there is no way that these companies can ramp up fast enough to get us everything that we need in the time that we need it
* Reopen the country?…
Finally, there has been some talk over the last 24 hours by some about who this nation might be willing to sacrifice to COBID 19, for the sake of our economic interests. Well, in case there’s any doubt in your minds, I’m not willing to sacrifice anyone.
There is no life in this state that is more or less precious than any other no person more or less worthy of saving. I want grandparents around to help raise their grandchildren. I want people to spend years after this is over, celebrating birthdays and wedding anniversaries and healthy retirements. I want Illinois to continue to be enriched by its young and old residents alike. Our economic strength comes from our diversity in this state, and the hard won experiences of our citizens without that we are nothing with it. There is nothing that we cannot overcome.
* It’s now the IDPH director’s turn…
In terms of the data that we’ve collected, 54% of our confirmed cases are white, 33% are black, 5% are categorized as Asian, we have 11% of Latino or Hispanic ethnicity.
In terms of severity of illness, our data shows that 16% of COVID cases have resulted in hospitalization, 4% have resulted in ICU admission. Of the lives lost, we see that 92% of those lives lost are in those older than 60.
* The National Guard’s Adjutant General again tried to counter rumors…
The National Guard has been the subject of recent rumors that we were performing some type of policing action to enforce a quarantine. Well let me repeat again today that the Illinois National Guard is not bringing weapons, and not enforcing quarantines. What we are doing is bringing approximately 115 personnel of the medical profession, as the governor spoke of earlier, to support things like drive through testing.
He continued by outlining the rest of the things the Guard is doing. It’s a lot.
* Now on to questions for the governor. First responders, healthcare workers are exhausted. Any potential to help relieve them?…
Healthcare workers are being overworked there’s no doubt about it. They’re doing heroic amazing work every day. And they do deserve a break as best we can give them. They’re so dedicated, they’re dedicated in non-crisis times I must say, and now they’re working, you know even harder. So as you know we expanded the eligibility to work in the healthcare field to people who had recently retired, we can give them back their licenses. Nearly immediately and those who may have left the profession for some other profession, we need them back we’re encouraging them to come back and we’ve seen hundreds already talking to us about coming back filling out forms and so on.
And so in that way we’re trying to fill up the need for more health care workers so we can alleviate some of the work on the front lines. We’re also, at the edges at the borders of the state, we’re allowing people who may work as healthcare workers in other states but may live in Illinois, or they may live on the other side of the border, and may be willing to work in Illinois, we want to make sure they get licensed in Illinois and so reciprocity, for those folks. We want to be able to move healthcare workers to where they’re most needed so we’re doing our best to try to alleviate the congestion let’s say that that is weighing upon the healthcare industry the healthcare workforce today and we’ll keep looking for ways to do that.
* Asked about President Trump’s stated desire to get the economy going again by April…
My concern with the President’s remarks is I don’t think he’s listening to the science. I think that he is, you know, operating, he’s looking at the stock market, which I know he’s essentially judges himself by, and making decisions in that way. Look, I understand that. What’s happening now is very, very difficult for families all across this nation.
Everybody is suffering financially from this and some more than others, and so this is something that weighs on all of us. And I think about how we can support people across the state of Illinois. We’ve done many things like expanding unemployment benefits and providing meals for kids and making sure that we’re looking at shelter for those who are homeless. There’s a, there’s an awful lot and of course we stopped evictions in the state and we stopped, we put a moratorium on on shut offs of utilities and so on, we’re doing many other things like that to protect people from the economic downturn that seems to be upon us.
But I think the President is not taking into account the true damage that this will do to our country. If we see truly millions of people die, and that’s what I think would happen that’s what the scientists and the doctors tell us what will happen. And you heard me say a little bit earlier, if you don’t have these restrictions on the damage that would be done that the lives that would be lost the overriding of our healthcare system would lead to real devastation so I’m very very concerned about what the President is saying.
* Will he be extending the stay at home order beyond April 7…
Again, I’m trying to follow the science here and I am concerned that we may have to extend that deadline.
You know we have to start to see some movement in the numbers in the right direction or at least a shaping of the curve that looks like we’re hitting you know a good spot in that curve.
* Budget adjustments?…
Well that is an excellent question I mean there’s no doubt that any estimates that were made even two months ago would be, you know, not useful. At this point I don’t think anybody expected where we would be today.
So we are working with our budget experts, with our Office of Management budget, with my deputy governor for budget and economy and our entire team to try to figure out what direction, what’s the steepness of the downturn in revenues and of course there are expenditures that we’re needing to make to save people’s lives to protect people across the state. We’re going to do what we need to do there’s no question about that. But yes, of course behind that we’ve got to look at our budget situation and do whatever we need to do to address it and then you know we’ve got to also consult with the General Assembly on what we will do for next year’s budget.
* Would he spend part of his own personal fortune to acquire PPE…
Well I’ve reached out to an awful lot of people in the business community that I know, to help them, to get them to help us acquire PPE from around the world. Many of them have offered their resources. I, of course, have been charitable as you know over the years and intend to be in this situation as well. And so we’ll be doing, I’m gonna be doing everything that I can. I’m certainly working more morning noon and night and I’ll put my resources to bear on it too.
-30-
42 Comments
|
* Last week…
Many of the early votes cast in Champaign County for the primary election may have been counted the night before Election Day, in violation of state law.
The first summary report of election returns — posted shortly after the polls closed Tuesday by Democratic Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons — appears to have been created at 10:19 p.m. Monday, according to the timestamp on the report.
State law mandates that early ballots can’t be counted until after the polls close on Election Day, and they are to be counted in the presence of both political parties, according to Republican county Recorder Mark Shelden, who once served as clerk.
“I cannot emphasize enough how out of line this is,” Shelden said. “Literally, in the dark of night, they’re counting votes with no Republicans present and uploading them into the system.”
* Ammons refused comment, but posted this on Facebook…
On the evening of Monday, March 16th the tabulators used to record and secure ballots at 10 early voting sites around the county were closed. A Democratic and Republican judge executed this process, jointly handled the ballots, and both signed off on the corresponding written results. The results are housed on a military-grade encrypted thumb drive and on a printed report from the tabulator, those and the ballots themselves are securely transported back to the Election Services Building, again, with Democratic and Republican judges together. These materials are received and checked by Democratic and Republican staff people, together, then secured in a locked box.
This process was in place before I became Clerk and remains the most secure option for recording early voting ballots while opening the same locations for Election Day.
* Not so, says former county clerk Gordy Hulten…
“What he’s saying is ‘We generated results and the judges handled them,’ which is a no-no, and not the procedure he inherited,” Hulten said.
In addition to the fact that it’s the law, Hulten said, observing the statute on timing of generating results matters “because voters who haven’t yet voted could be discouraged by the early release of results,” he said. “It’s important because candidates who know results prior to the close of polls can potentially use that information to their advantage.” […]
“Mr. Ammons’ Facebook post indicates that his election judges printed and returned tabulator tapes with results to him on Monday evening, before the close of voting on Tuesday night,” Hulten said. “The screen capture of the results shown to me indicate that his office read the USB memory sticks and generated aggregated results reports, also on Monday evening, before the close of voting on Tuesday night.”
In his instructions to election judges about closing early voting for the November 2018 election, Hulten said there isn’t a mention of judges printing, signing or returning a results tape when closing, “because under our procedures, no results tape was generated.”
*** UPDATE *** Ammons was harshly rebuked this week by the Illinois State Board of Elections…
24 Comments
|
* Republican US Sen. Tom Cotton on the Senate floor yesterday…
Go right through that door and ask Chuck Schumer what he’s demanding in secret behind closed doors. Oh, and don’t forget all of their cities, and all their states. Dick Durbin represents one of the most bankrupt states in America and the most bankrupt city, Chicago, in America behind those closed doors. They are demanding straight cash bailouts for states and cities that have been fiscally irresponsible for years.
And they come down here and accuse us of bailouts? We are willing to help those cities and states. They are overwhelmed by this pandemic. Yet we simply say they have to repay the money on the back end. That’s not what the Democrats are asking for behind those closed doors over there. They want straight cash payments.
Despite all this, everybody keeps saying they’re close to an agreement on a stimulus bill. We’ll see.
…Adding… Heh…
53 Comments
|
* I’ve chided Gov. Pritzker twice for the tone he’s used with President Trump. It’s not that I felt the governor was being counter-productive. It’s that two of our last three governors would regularly fly into public rages and I hated that. I also believed, and still do, that he needed to continue being Gov. Chillax during these frightening times. The facts are obviously on his side, so I wanted him to stick to the facts.
There are those, including within the Pritzker administration, who believe that President Trump respects those who challenge him. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but the POTUS did say this last night…
* Tina Sfondeles…
After a string of national TV appearances in which Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker criticized President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic — and a couple of Twitter tirades — the White House on Monday has vowed to send Illinois 300 ventilators and 250,000 masks.
According to the governor’s office, that assurance came from a White House aide on Monday afternoon after Pritzker and Trump spoke directly on the phone at about noon. It also came some 24 hours after Pritzker complained “the only way to get the president of the United States to pay attention is to go on national television and make noise about it.”
So, maybe it did work. But the state needs far more than what’s been promised…
And the White House has made a whole lot of promises it hasn’t kept during the past several weeks.
Maybe our Republican delegation can finally stand up and say something?
…Adding… Also, this. All day this…
…Adding… I wonder how he feels now that the president has vowed to help Illinois?…
Cook County Republican Chairman Sean Morrison lashed out Monday at Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot, accusing them of putting politics before constituents with their “volley of combative and sarcastic tweets” aimed at President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
“Finger-pointing and name calling by Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot solves absolutely nothing except for trying to score some cheap political points,” Morrison said in a statement. “We need steady, effective and focused leadership and they’re not providing it.”
81 Comments
|
|
Support CapitolFax.com
Visit our advertisers...
...............
...............
...............
...............
...............
...............
...............
|
   
|
Hosted by MCS
SUBSCRIBE to Capitol Fax
Advertise Here
Mobile Version
Contact Rich Miller
|
