* Well, we’ve made it to the end of another blog year, and what a year it’s been. I’m so grateful to all subscribers, readers and commenters for hanging in through the absolute craziest times in living history. We all had some dark moments, but the holidays are finally upon us and I hope we can all find some joy, love and happiness to brighten our lives. Peace be with you.
* As is our custom, we will close out the year with three songs for my mom. Suzy Snowflake…
The US could see a decline of two to three years in life expectancy in 2020 due to the coronavirus, the steepest drop since the second world war. Covid-19 is poised to become the third-leading cause of death in America, the Wall Street Journal reported.
This is the deadliest year in U.S. history, with deaths expected to top 3 million for the first time — due mainly to the coronavirus pandemic.
Final mortality data for this year will not be available for months. But preliminary numbers suggest that the United States is on track to see more than 3.2 million deaths this year, or at least 400,000 more than in 2019.
As the coronavirus ravages chronically understaffed Illinois nursing homes, state fines to enforce decade-old staffing minimums are supposed to take effect next week. But a lawmaker who helped broker administrative rules for the penalties says the enforcement will wait awhile longer.
A 2010 law established minimum hours of direct daily care for residents who need skilled nursing. Lawmakers did not enact the fines until 18 months ago. That measure says “monetary penalties shall be imposed beginning no later than Jan. 1, 2021.”
The Illinois Department of Public Health has nearly finalized the rules for the enforcement but state Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, says IDPH won’t actually start issuing fines until mid-year.
“That will allow the nursing homes to staff up as we hopefully move out of the pandemic,” said Cunningham, co-chair of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, which backed a draft of the enforcement rules last week.
“It will also give the Department of Public Health the ability to hire inspectors,” Cunningham said. “That’s something they haven’t done yet, and they can’t really enforce these rules until they have boots on the ground.”
The fines have been on the books for 18 months. The IDPH has had plenty of time to get its act together, even with the pandemic. This has “disaster” written all over it.
Americans have long relied on institutions to care for the frailest seniors. The U.S. has the largest number of nursing-home residents in the world. But families and some doctors have been reluctant to send patients to such facilities, fearing infection and isolation in places ravaged by Covid-19, which has caused more than 115,000 deaths linked to U.S. long-term-care institutions. […]
Occupancy in U.S. nursing homes is down by 15%, or more than 195,000 residents, since the end of 2019, driven both by deaths and by the fall in admissions, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data shows.
The decline in nursing-home patients covered by Medicare, which provides payments vital to the homes’ business model, is even steeper. That has left the industry in precarious financial shape. The biggest U.S. nursing-home company said in August it might not have enough money to pay its obligations.
* Illinois Times on the impact of Sangamon County’s mitigations on the local positivity rate…
The infection rate went down after local authorities, after initially resisting a gubernatorial directive, shut down bars and restaurants last month.
“Unfortunately, it was clear that there was a wave that was almost approaching a tidal wave of cases,” Dr. Donald Graham, an adviser to the Sangamon County Department of Public Health told Sam Madonia, a local radio host, [yesterday] morning. “It just wasn’t possible to stay open because there were cases all over the place.” It was impossible, Graham said, to determine whether indoor dining with safeguards would be safe because too many people didn’t follow rules. “There were parameters to follow that weren’t being followed,” Graham told Madonia. “One of the key ones was separation of people when they came into the restaurant, staying six feet apart.”
Last week, Dr. Brian Miller, president of the county health board, told Madonia that the health department closed bars and ended indoor dining in November because authorities had no way of stopping private gatherings and hospital beds were filling up. “With the numbers being what they were, if we could just decrease that number by 10 or 15 percent – we needed to get through that eye of the needle, because it was tight,” Miller told Madonia. “By doing that, we possibly avoided a major catastrophe.”
Lawyers for a Kane County restaurant [FoxFire Tavern] are asking the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn an appellate court decision that found the governor’s indoor dining ban was lawfully imposed.
FoxFire, a steak and seafood restaurant in Geneva, continues to allow seating indoors, in defiance of the governor’s executive order, as its legal case remains pending.
“Law and order.”
If you’re going to blatantly ignore an appellate court ruling, then why even spend the money on an appeal to the state’s highest court?
In a live video shared on Facebook on Thursday of Champaign County health inspectors filling out forms after witnessing indoor dining at Lil Buford’s, owner Jeff Buckler said he’s taking a stand despite being fined $500 a day for allowing people to dine inside his restaurant.
“COVID rates are down, go to Walmart, go to Target, go to any other shopping mall and it’s packed beyond belief,” Buckler told the county officials. “We’ve got nine people in here.”
The tiny crowd size could be an indicator that people don’t want to sit maskless inside near people they don’t know. Just sayin…
The debate became heated Monday night just before the council voted 6-1 to waive renewal fees for liquor license holders who follow state rules including one that forbids them from serving customers indoors.
Council member Stan Nord voted no, saying staff should not be playing partisan politics by pushing Pritzker’s positions.
“We’re creating this essentially as a way to financially incentivize or bribe someone to follow these rules,” said Nord.
City Manager Pam Reece took the unusual step of publicly criticizing an elected official.
“That is not the first time Mr. Nord has implied and even come right out and stated that we’re bribing and doing things that would be completely unethical, and I just want counsel to acknowledge that is absolutely not the case, not happening, and not okay to imply that you as a body or town staff would do that,” said Reece.
