* Gov. JB Pritzker at today’s media briefing…

Before I get into today’s conversation. I want to address the ruling that came out of the Clay County Circuit Court yesterday.

First, the stay at home order designed in close consultation with scientists and public health experts remains in place.

As it stands, the judge’s ruling is limited. Applying only to one person, the state representative from the hundred ninth district.

For those unfamiliar, the 109th District happens to have among the lowest hospital bed availability and ventilators in the state, making it uniquely ill-equipped to respond to a surge in cases. The district is also home to the county experiencing Illinois highest death rate per capita from COVID-19.

This ruling only applies to one person, because it was only ever about one person.

This was a cheap political stunt designed so that the representative can see his name in headlines, and unfortunately he has briefly been successful in that most countless of feats as absurd as this charade is, we are taking this matter very seriously.

While the court’s order is limited, the risk it poses is significant. By agreeing with the plaintiffs in this initial ruling, the court set a dangerous precedent. Slowing the spread of this virus is critical to saving lives by ensuring our healthcare system has the resources to treat patients who get sick. And we will not stop this virus if because of this ruling, any resident can petition to be exempted from aspects of the orders that rely on collective action to keep us all safe.

Because of the threat to public health from this court order and the fact that the state has acted well within its legal authority to protect the health of the public, the state is appealing immediately.

I know misinformation tends to spread quickly in situations like this. So I assure you that I will continue to provide you with updates on any new developments.

But on this topic, I leave you with this. I know this virus is causing devastating economic consequences. Just as this has caused tens of thousands to become ill and thousands to die. For two months, not a second has gone by,where the economic impact on our working families at our small businesses hasn’t been an important and paramount consideration of my decision making.

I have been listening to working people and businesses to Democrats and Republicans, epidemiologists and expert modelers. Responsible people understand the trade offs and the consequences of reopening too early. So I will continue to listen and to act in a responsible fashion. So we can all get back to work and school and move toward normal in a way that will keep our families, healthy and safe.

Let me remind everyone again. The stay at home order in Illinois is still very much in effect. All of us must maintain social distancing, wear masks in public and keep non essential businesses closed until we can lower our still increasing hospitalizations and lower ICU bed use. The danger has not passed yet, no matter whether you live, in little Egypt, or in Freeport, or in Quincy, or in Chicago. We are making much of progress, and much of the progress that we had hoped to make.

And we will not let one irresponsible state representative deter us from success.

Now moving on to the business of actually keeping people safe.

The governor then went on to welcome the assistance of the Polish medical delegation and praised the Illinois National Guard.

Please pardon all transcription errors.

* Dr. Ezike…

Thus far, we have run 242,189 tests with 14,561 tests being run yesterday.

Regarding hospital data, as of yesterday 4738 people in Illinois were reported to be hospitalized with COVID-19. That’s up from 4672 yesterday.

Of those, roughly 25% or 1245 patients are in the ICU and 778 patients were on ventilators.

Talking about recovery, I’d like to report that we’ve been continuing with our survey to identify people who report having a resolution of their symptoms after having a positive test for those less than two weeks from the positive test 49% report no longer having symptoms and feeling recovered. For people who are between two and four weeks from their positive test 61% report feeling recovered. And after more than four weeks from the positive tests 74% of the respondents report being recovered. I hope that scene is encouraging news that people do recover. We mourn the loss of all the lives and we’re sorry for all those who have had to endure a battle in the hospital, but the majority of individuals do recover.

* On to questions for the governor. Rep. Bailey says local health departments are the authority to decide quarantine situation so there’s due process with those affected. Why isn’t that the way it should be handled instead of the statewide approach?…

Local health departments certainly have lots of authority, they can put in more stringent rules than the state does, that’s certainly true. But the state of Illinois has a Public Health Act and has an Emergency Management Act that allows us to protect all of the people of the state, thinking about every region of the state which I am and we are.

* If you can explain the Department of Public Health’s quarantine authority and will you now turn to those powers giving the judges temporary restraining order, if you believe you need to?…

We’re not, there is no quarantine authority that’s being exercised here there’s a stay at home order their executive orders they’re in place to effectuate the protection of all of our citizens. I’m not sure what the if there was some other point to the question

I think what he was speaking of, the judge’s ruling yesterday said, in essence, by limiting people to what they can go outside and do, so you can go to the grocery store but can’t go fishing, that is in effect a quarantine… You don’t believe this applies at all in that regard?…

It’s called a stay at home order, there is no mandate that people have to stay quarantined in their home. That’s not what the stay at home order says. That’s the name of the order, but the order in fact says that we’re designed to protect families and individuals all across the state, following guidelines from our federal Homeland Security Department, where we’ve essentially authorized essential businesses to keep operating. But we’ve asked non essential businesses to close, and we’ve asked people to wear masks and we’ve asked people to make sure and protect each other across the state by keeping social distancing norms. And that’s all of what those orders are about.

But again, it’s the authority of the Emergency Management Act of the Public Health Act. And it is the history of the state of Illinois that we have sometimes successive declarations of disaster in the state.

A good example is floods that have occurred in the past which, remember, emergencies don’t have a time bound to them necessarily. Aometimes they do, a tornado can come and go. And the emergency can be declared and has a time bound to it. Floods tend not to, pandemics which we haven’t experienced in Illinois for 100 years, pandemics don’t live by a 30 day timeframe. And so all we’re trying to do is to end our disaster. Our executive orders as soon as possible, but with the thought in mind that we need to keep people safe until we’re able to do that.

[Bailey’s lawyer] told me today that just because there have been continuing proclamations in the past that have never been challenged in court doesn’t set precedent for the court to accept that as a legal exercise of authority. Can you respond to that?…

All I would say is he should read the statute. The statute allows the governor to declare an emergency for 30 days at a time. And if there is an emergency that occurs this emergency declaration goes till April 30. I’m not sure what he’s suggesting but on May 1, if there is an emergency on May 1, then it is the authority of the governor to declare an emergency, a disaster proclamation on May 1 for 30 days.

But, look, let’s not get into the you know the the back and forth. Here’s the facts. We are defeating this virus by virtue of having a stay at home order. You can hear from Dr Ezike and others that there would have been thousands more deaths in the state and there will be thousands of deaths if this executive order is not allowed to proceed on May 1 through May 30. So all I can say is that it is the height of recklessness that that attorney and his client have gone ahead and challenged the idea that we’re in the middle of an emergency. Remember, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has declared a national emergency. We are one of the United States, and we too have declared a disaster.

It appears we’re going to have a second lawsuit filed by a Republican, Representative Cabello. Similar claims. I haven’t seen it yet, we’re told that’s going to happen today. So now we have a second Republican from upstate challenging this. Do you have a concern that this is going to have a snowball effect and that there’s going to be a lot more Republicans challenging this and is this going to go to the Supreme Court, eventually?…

Well, it appears to me to be some partisan endeavor at a moment when frankly political parties shouldn’t matter at all. We should be focused on simply doing what’s best for people, keeping them safe and healthy.

But I don’t know, certainly people have the ability, anybody has the ability to go to court. But I know that we have appealed this ruling in Clay County in the local court Circuit Court in Clay County. It’s been appealed. And our hope is that it’s the Supreme Court’s been asked to take up the matter and so my hope is that we can move swiftly just to move this out of the way,because we have so much to do. We have so much to do to keep people safe and wasting our time and effort on these ridiculous lawsuits is something that I think is just, it’s something that we shouldn’t have to do and shameful acts on the parts of these partisan actors.

* There’s talk about quarantine fatigue or caution fatigue, with mental health experts saying it really started to kick in. Can you comment on that and can these actually hurt people’s efforts to stay safe?…

Dr. Ezike: No of course, we know it’s a big sacrifice that we’re asking people.. Of course we’re trying to do it with their best intentions with the public health in mind. Trust me, no one wants to tell people to stay at home. No one wants people to not be able to enjoy our beautiful state. It is with a lot of reflection and the use of data that we are using taking these aggressive actions and they’re actually working. We know that we have flattened the curve. we know that we have decreased the rate of rise of a number of people who’ve gotten infected, which means that we’ve decreased the number of people who will be hospitalized and have passed on. I unfortunately cannot prevent every fatality. but we can decrease the numbers as much as we can. And so I know that people are getting tired, we all are tired of this pandemic the enemy. The common enemy is the virus, it’s not the people, it’s not public health is trying to keep people safe it’s not the governor’s working so hard to help us manage these community mitigation strategies. We all need to try to hang in there so that we can prevent the loss of life of our loved ones and ourselves. Is there some worry about the toll that this constant state of fear could have on people of stress that’s creating, definitely that’s a very real thing and that’s why we’ve had the the call lines to help people with some mental health resources. And we hope that others are able to check on friends and others who may be more predisposed to having further mental health exacerbations. It is a trying time, no one’s gonna deny that being in for this long and not being able to connect with people physically which is an important and normal human normal desire, all of that is being interrupted. But for the greater good of being able to not lose lives and hopefully when we can come out of this, we will have to address some of these issues. Hopefully people can reach out and get some telehealth and telemental health. In the meantime, but again we’re not trying to unduly punish people we’re actually trying to work on the society’s best interest.

* When can we see contact tracing start to be part of the solution? Do you have a timeline for that? And then also the White House is promising because say 20,000 testing swaps per day in May. Is that going to be enough?…

Listen, I am thrilled that the White House is going to provide 20,000 swabs a day I was on the phone this morning with [garbled] on that very subject and it will be a great advancement for us to have 20,000 more opportunities to get testing up and going. The first part was just on contract tracing, now I know so I think ramped up yeah also after that discussion with the admirals I had a meeting with our contact tracing team. And that is something that we’re working very hard to spin up to get going in a, in a large way, as you know there are a lot of components to that, there’s a technology component, there’s a hiring component. This is a very large endeavor. When you have more than 2000 people that are being identified every day as a result of more testing, we now have more cases that are identified and each one of those people may, for example, have had 10 contacts or more. And so you can imagine every single day and then pile on top of that, that we are monitoring the people who are in quarantine or in isolation, I should say. once they’ve been contacted and asked to go into isolation, or given options about what they’re going to do. So it’s a very large endeavor and we would be the second state to have a very large contact tracing initiative, take place so I’m, I’m kind of pushing hard on the team, they know it for us to get that going. Because that’s the other or another of the major components that allows us to open up the economy even more.

* What about antibody testing, is that going to be more widely available anytime soon?…

We would like to do antibody testing, but i as i said the other day, the tests are still as yet somewhat unproven, or you know the sensitivity is in question still. And there are lots of articles about that. We want to make sure that when we start doing antibody testing that we’re giving people accurate results, and that we know what the impact is because one of the things that we still don’t know is if in fact you are immune after you’ve had COVID-19. And so doing antibody testing was intended to give people that information, so we don’t want to start that until we have at least a greater medical basis upon which to give people that information.

* Regarding your comments yesterday on the Bailey lawsuit. Are you really that contemptuous of the judiciary or the right of citizens or even the legislator to go to court to challenge an executive power in this country? He said that Bailey is grandstanding isn’t that what you were doing when you call the lawsuit and said his actions would make people sick?…

Okay, that’s just a ridiculous question I’m not even sure how to answer. No, I know, I’m responding to Mr O’Connor.

First of all I have great respect for the judiciary. Second of all, I absolutely think it’s the people’s right to go to court. Third of all, what I’m calling reckless is the idea and the contention that’s been made by this state representative, that somehow we’re intending to limit people’s civil liberties or that we’re intending to take away people’s rights. That’s not the intention here. The intention in fact is to save people’s lives. So it is reckless in the extreme for a state representative who should know better, to bring a lawsuit like that, that he knows might have a terrible effect on the health and safety of people all across the state. That’s what’s reckless, he should be more responsible than that. Anybody can go to court. Absolutely. Anybody can go to court. But the fact that he took that case to court and that he was the plaintiff in that case, that he’s the one giving you know, interviews, about why people’s rights have been taken away and claiming somehow that this is unconstitutional. I mean he should know, but he should read the statutes. That’s what he should do

* What is the Department of Public Health going to do in the event that the state loses this lawsuit and do local health departments have the capacity to deal with a situation?…

Dr. Ezike: The Public Health Act actually gives us most of the authority to make sure that those restrictions are in place. Other aspects of the law give us other powers too so. So, it would be somewhat. I mean it’s hard to speculate exactly whether or not this case would go anywhere else. I do not believe that the courts will allow this ruling to stand and I do believe that the courts will overturn it.

* It is illegal to sell premix cocktails to go in Chicago but bar owners say they need those sales to survive Lightfoot said it’s a state issue. Are you considering pushing to make it legal?…

I don’t know that it’s a state issue, I haven’t thought about mixed drinks being served at the curb but I’m happy to look into it.

* The FDA recently reduced the time for blood donations from gay and bisexual men from a year to three months. Is there a movement from Governor’s to totally eliminate this ban, given how badly blood donations are needed?…

This is something that the federal government has imposed. That’s not something that I would support as a governor, but unfortunately this is a federal law.

* To what extent is COVID-19 dividing the state has increased partisan has an increased partisan divide?…

I think there was a poll yesterday that showed that the vast majority of people in the state support, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, support the stay at home order. And so I don’t think it’s there’s a partisan divide, I do think that there are a few people who are trying to take political advantage at the moment in the middle of the pandemic that is killing people. They’re politicizing it.

* You’ve extended sales tax deadlines for bars and restaurants. Are some more accommodations in the works for other businesses or other businesses tax relief options on the table?…

We certainly are talking to the General Assembly about that, you know, there are other things that I think we could do. But those are in the works and I don’t have anything to announce today.

Dr. Ezike was asked about guidance for wearing a mask. Please check the Google.

* There’s another question about clarifying the pools and whether or not, why those are not open during the pandemic?…

Dr. Ezike: Well, I think, again, swimming and pools are a summer pastime that everyone would like to feel that they’re back to normal and being able to enjoy the normal things of the summer. Again, we are still learning a lot about this virus. But in terms of pools in genera,l we know that the settings of pools, whether it’s public pools or private pools, usually involves mass gatherings almost like that. Lots of people congregating together, whether in the water or poolside. So there for many reasons that we probably need to get to a certain point in our epidemiologic curve before we could probably consider that.

* In Bloomington, our state run drive up testing site is still underutilized and Bloomington is averaging about 100 people per day and capacity is 250.
Asymptomatic workers supporting critical infrastructure are still not allowed to be tested there despite state guidance that says they should be. What’s the holdup on loosening those restrictions there?…

Well, we have a limited number of tests and capability across the state. And so, to the extent that as we’re focused today on people who are symptomatic or our first responders and other essential workers there again is still a limited number of tests available. We would hope that more people would go to that site, but I do want to remind the questioner that actually in Bloomington,what we’ve seen is there are a lot of other sites that are available for people and that is one of the reasons why people are not going to that site is they have the ability to go to other health care facilities that have testing available.

* What’s your backup plan to continue to fight COVID-19 in the event the courts restrain your executive orders which you’ve already mentioned but he also has a second part: If it’s not clear the law gives you the powers you feel you need, why not call an emergency session now?…

I am reasonably confident that the responsible members of the judiciary will overrule and, overturn rather the ruling that came from this one judge.

* Chicago released school level budgets today. They included $125 million increase. With dire forecasts in other cities about school funding are budget increases wise?…

I can’t even answer the question because we don’t yet know, working with the legislature whether we’ll be able to increase education funding at all but but I hope that we will be okay.

* Dan Petrella will be our last question from the Tribune. Are you considering any additional duties for the guard as part of the COVID response? In Connecticut for example Guard members are being deployed to aid with nursing home inspections, is that something we could see here?…

Well, let me just begin by saying to Dan Petrella that I read the piece that he posted today about his aunt the loss of his aunt. And I just want to tell you how very sorry I am for your personal loss.

Absolutely. The National Guard has been tremendous. I mean everything we’ve asked them to do they’ve done with a just, you know, the execution has been amazing. They are excellent at everything that they do we will be asking the National Guard to do new things. It may be that we’ll ask them to help us with nursing homes more than they already are. As you know, we’ve deployed them to prisons we’ve deployed them to testing sites we’ve had them really in virtually everything that we’re doing in fighting this pandemic they’ve been somehow involved and so I, there’s no doubt that we’ll continue to use the National Guard.

And I just, I said it many times, but I’m just so proud of these young men and women and their relationship with the Polish military, which when I became governor I learned so much more about. And I must say it gives, it’s a point of real pride for the state of Illinois to have this kind of a relationship with the kind of excellent military operation of Poland. And of course because we have so many Polish Americans here in the city of Chicago. It’s a great point of pride, especially for them so thank you very much for everything that you’re doing. thank you Consul General.

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