The Donald E. Stephens Convention and Conference Center in Rosemont announced today that they will resume hosting trade shows and public events in July of this year. The announcement follows news that the Auto Show will return to Chicago this summer.
“The Stephens Convention Center is a major economic engine not only for our community but for the State of Illinois,” said Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens. “This one facility is responsible for $800 million in annual economic impact through everything from hotel stays and restaurant receipts to retail and even gasoline sales.”
The Donald E. Stephens Convention and Conference Center is among the largest such facilities in the United States. Staff and management are prepared to reopen with the health and safety of attendees at the top of mind. The Convention Center will be accredited by the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC) by the time shows resume. Considered the gold standard in the industry, GBAC accreditation is given to facilities that have established certain cleaning and disinfecting protocols that are carried out by highly trained professionals.
“The health and safety of our attendees is our highest priority,” said Convention Center Executive Director Chris Stephens. “We closely track and follow all best practices and guidance from the CDC and the Illinois Department of Public Health.”
Approximately 30 trade shows and public events are tentatively scheduled between July and the end of the year. With close to 1 million square feet available for shows and events, there is ample space for a limited return to events.
Before the pandemic, the Donald E. Stephens Convention and Conference Center hosted around 70 trade shows and 250 meetings and social events per year. Those shows historically bring as many as 1.5 million people to the region.
“We’re excited to take another step towards normal,” said Mayor Brad Stephens. “It’s good for Rosemont and it’s good for Illinois.”
*** UPDATE *** Another one…
Ken Griffin’s Citadel expects to have most of its U.S. employees back in its offices in Chicago, New York and Greenwich, Connecticut, by June 1, according to a person familiar with the matter. https://t.co/qyzMrxJdA7
— Crain's Chicago Business (@CrainsChicago) May 4, 2021
Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
A new white paper from the Coalition to Protect Telehealth highlights the impact of access to telehealth services on underserved communities across Illinois, underscoring the importance of passing House Bill 3498 in the Senate. Illinois Telehealth Impact: Prioritizing Healthcare Equity, Access & Quality is the collective effort of the 35 organizations that comprise the Coalition to Protect Telehealth.
The white paper emphasizes that telehealth coverage must not be limited to a segment of services or available only to those who can afford the full cost of telehealth services. During the pandemic, telehealth helped advance health equity by providing more options for healthcare appointments, including phone calls and video visits. According to the white paper, telehealth also creates greater access to healthcare professionals who share a patient’s racial, ethnic or linguistic background.
Seven in 10 Illinois family physicians responding to a recent survey identified telehealth services as helpful specifically for their patients from underserved areas. In a broader survey of Illinois physicians, over half said telehealth is an important tool to expand access to care for patients from underserved areas.
* The Sun-Times editorial board demands that Mayor Lightfoot commit Statehouse political suicide by throwing everything she’s got against an elected school board…
One person must be accountable to recruit superb new leaders. One person must be in charge. That one person should be the city’s elected chief executive, the mayor.
Yeah, well, into every life a little rain must fall.
The Catholic Conference of Illinois is lobbying against proposed tax changes for the 2022 fiscal year that would reduce an income tax credit gained for donations to private scholarships.
In a letter released Tuesday, Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago joined bishops representing the state’s other five dioceses – administrative districts under the Catholic Church – asking Catholics to call their local legislators and ask them to oppose the measure put forward by Gov. JB Pritzker, which they called “an important matter of public policy and social justice.”
Illinoisans convicted of a drug felony would still be able to access cash welfare assistance under a measure approved by the Illinois House last week.
The proposal marks the fifth attempt State Rep. Mary Flowers (D-Chicago) has made to open Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare benefits for Illinoisans with drug felony records. But last week’s vote was the first time the idea actually passed out of the House.
Flowers said recent changes in state drug policy, particularly Illinois’ legalization of recreational marijuana in 2019, convinced her the time was right to try again.
* We didn’t get nearly that intensity in Springfield yesterday, but I happened to arrive at the Stratton just after the alarms went off in the building…
Came to the Stratton to get my COVID test and walked right into a severe weather warning pic.twitter.com/jyudobDAwF
Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Study Finds Expanding Illinois’ Renewable Energy Program Will
Lower Energy Costs for All Illinois Consumers
• A study by former Illinois Power Agency (IPA) director shows that passing Path to 100 (HB 2640 / SB 1601) will lower energy costs for all ratepayers
• Consumers save more than $1.2 Billion over ten years by fully funding Illinois’ renewable energy program to 40% by 2031
• Path to 100 would create 53,000 new construction jobs
Why more renewables = lower costs:
1. Wind and solar generators have zero fuel costs, so they win wholesale energy auctions and displace more expensive power plants. These savings are passed on to all consumers.
2. Rooftop and community solar reduce peak demand, which reduces the amount of capacity that grid operators need to buy. These savings are passed on to all consumers.
3. Rooftop and community solar customers receive direct savings on their bills.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 2,211 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 19 additional deaths.
Cook County: 1 male 50s, 1 female 70s, 2 males 70s, 1 female 80s, 3 males 80s, 1 male 90s
DuPage County: 1male 70s, 1 female 80s
Franklin County: 1 male 70s
Kane County: 1 male 50s
Lake County: 1 male 80s
Peoria County: 1 female 40s
Rock Island County: 1 male 80s
Sangamon County: 1 male 70s
St. Clair County: 1 female 80s
Will County: 1 male 60s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 1,343,988 cases, including 22,066 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 57,483 specimens for a total of 22,929,518. As of last night, 2,074 individuals in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 493 patients were in the ICU and 262 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from April 27-May 3, 2021 is 3.3%. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from April 27-May 3, 2021 is 4.0%.
The total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses for Illinois is 11,970,775. A total of 9,450,418 vaccines have been administered in Illinois as of last midnight. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 72,613 doses. Yesterday, 40,361 doses were reported administered in Illinois. Data from this weekend from several pharmacies (Walgreens, Albertsons, CVS) is not yet available due to a national outage in the pharmacies system so the doses being reported as administered are likely to be low. The missing doses will be reflected in numbers in the next couple days.
*All data are provisional and will change. In order to rapidly report COVID-19 information to the public, data are being reported in real-time. Information is constantly being entered into an electronic system and the number of cases and deaths can change as additional information is gathered. For health questions about COVID-19, call the hotline at 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov.
Some Republicans in the General Assembly, including House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, are calling for a criminal investigation into the coronavirus-related deaths at the state-run LaSalle Veterans’ Home.
The push for a criminal probe comes after a state investigative report was released Friday that found there were widespread failures at the LaSalle facility and the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs that contributed to 36 resident deaths there since November. […]
“I wouldn’t say we’re at the level of probable cause, but it certainly does warrant further investigation on whether or not criminal negligence did take place because not only were (veterans) injured and became ill, but we did have deaths at that facility,” Durkin, of Western Springs, said at a news conference Friday.
* Excerpt from a Sen. Sue Rezin press release…
In March 2019, the Illinois Auditor General released a performance audit following the deadly Legionnaires’ Disease outbreak at the Quincy Veterans’ Home. While some of the audit’s recommendations explicitly dealt with Legionnaires’ Disease, others dealt with responding to any type of outbreak. Those recommendations were:
Recommendation 3 (Report page 100): Monitoring by IDPH
• “The Illinois Department of Public Health should revisit its policies and determine what response timeframe is adequate to conduct on-site monitoring visits in response to a confirmed outbreak…”
• “The Illinois Department of Public Health should increase communication with the facility’s staff during future outbreaks to ensure that IDPH is aware of the severity of the outbreak.”
Recommendation 4 (Report on page 100): Recommendations by the CDC
• “The Illinois Department of Public Health and the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs should ensure the state facilities, such as the Quincy Veterans’ Home, implement all recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control following confirmed outbreaks…”
The Pritzker Administration ignored every one of these recommendations. According to legislative testimony by IDPH’s chief of staff, the agency had no policy for conducting on-site monitoring visits in response to a confirmed outbreak. The Pritzker Administration did not implement new communication protocols to ensure IDPH was fully aware of the severity of the outbreak since agency personnel failed to arrive on-site for nearly two weeks. Despite the Auditor General’s recommendation, there were no mechanisms to ensure CDC recommendations were being followed at the LaSalle home or any other state-run facility.
“A LaSalle Veterans’ Home nurse summarized the outbreak response by saying, ‘nobody seemed to know what to do,” said Sen Rezin. “Nobody indeed knew what to do at the Veterans’ Home, and nobody cared to do anything about it at the Governor’s Office.”
She makes some good points.
*** UPDATE *** Press release…
Law firm Levin & Perconti is representing more than a dozen families whose loved ones died from COVID-19 following a massive outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home in November.
A recently released Illinois Dept. of Human Services Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) report documents extensive failures by the facility’s management and executive leadership at the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs, including a lack of proper staff training and an absence of pandemic-specific policies and procedures, as well as the failure to create a specific plan of action in case of an outbreak, even as COVID positivity rates spiked in the surrounding community.
Levin & Perconti, nationally renowned for its work representing victims in nursing home abuse and neglect cases, is pursuing cases on behalf of COVID victims in multiple private nursing homes across the state and recently filed suit on behalf of the family of 90-year-old Richard Cieski, Sr., a Korean War veteran who died as a result of the LaSalle Veterans’ Home outbreak.
“What has been revealed by the OIG report is very much consistent with what we’ve seen at other facilities where these massive outbreaks happened,” said Levin & Perconti partner Michael Bonamarte. “There are well-documented ways to protect nursing home residents from infection, clearly outlined in federal guidelines, but when leaders fail to put those protocols into practice with adequate policies, procedures and training, we see the devastating consequences of those failures. These are predictable and preventable tragedies.”
Bonamarte and the firm are already representing multiple LaSalle Veterans’ families and urge others to come forward to share their loved ones’ stories as well.
“These Illinois veterans and their loved ones deserved better,” Bonamarte said. “We are seeking to hold the responsible IDVA leaders and managers accountable for their failure to protect the elderly veterans in their care. The veterans’ loved ones want to make sure their voices are heard, their loved ones’ legacies of service are honored, and other veterans receive the quality care they deserve.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday said she plans to fully reopen the city of Chicago with no capacity limits by July 4, potentially opening the door to bigger events and festivals if the city continues to see progress in its COVID-19 numbers. […]
Lightfoot’s plan may sound optimistic, but if current trends hold, the state could move to full reopening under Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s revised plan by early-to-mid June.
“The trends are encouraging, but we must be cautious as we move forward,” said Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “As more venues reopen, it is critical that we increase the number of people who are vaccinated. Immunity is how we stop transmission of this virus, but we need greater community immunity and that requires as many of us as possible getting vaccinated as soon as possible.”
The CTU won an agreement with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s hand-picked board of education in early April to provide vaccinations to high school students and their vulnerable family members. Thousands of those students and family members hail from precisely the Black and Brown neighborhoods that have been most disproportionately hammered by COVID-19 sickness and death — and which continue to struggle to access shots through the Mayor’s ‘hunger games’ approach to vaccine access. Yet CPS has dragged on implementing the program — and rank and file educators are demanding that the mayor’s CPS management team begin working immediately with the Union to get the vaccination program up and running for students and school communities.
The White House on Tuesday told states that coronavirus vaccine supply they leave unordered will become available to other states — the most significant shift in domestic vaccine distribution since President Biden took office, and part of an effort to account for flagging demand in parts of the country.
Three months after Chicago began administering the COVID-19 vaccine to police officers, data from the Chicago Police Department show that only about a quarter of department employees have gotten at least one shot at a city-run site.
The department insists those numbers may be artificially low because they aren’t tracking officers who received the vaccine outside of city-hosted vaccination sites. But in January, the department asked officers if they were interested in getting vaccinated against COVID-19; 38% responded that they were. Since the start of the pandemic, police report more than 3,200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the department.
“I think officers are no different than the general population, there is a skepticism. There are unanswered questions when it comes to the vaccine, it rolled out in record time,” said Chicago Fraternal Order of Police president John Catanzara.
Catanzara said there is definitely hesitancy among the rank and file, and admitted he has not yet gotten vaccinated against COVID-19.
“No hurry,” he said. “Some people say I’m too mean to get the virus.”
[Dr. Michael Bauer, medical director at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital] noted that Israel experienced a dive in COVID-19 infections after the country reached the 40% to 50% range of fully vaccinated residents. “They saw a precipitous drop in the numbers and once they hit 60% they really lowered,” he said.
Three major retail pharmacy chains — Walgreens, Walmart and Sam’s Club — are offering COVID-19 vaccinations to people who walk into their stores without appointments.
New cases of the coronavirus rose 25% in Winnebago County last week. There were also nine deaths from the virus, which is more than the previous three weeks combined.
An analysis of the city’s gunshot detection system released Monday found that nearly 86% of police deployments to alerts of gunfire prompted no formal reports of any crime.
The research, conducted by the MacArthur Justice Center at the Northwestern University School of Law, shows there were more that 40,000 “dead-end deployments” to gunshot alerts recorded between July 2019 and mid-April — an average of 61 each day.
Just 10% of the alerts over that period sent officers on calls that likely involved guns, the researchers found after analyzing records kept by the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications. […]
But activists continue to raise concerns about ShotSpotter’s ability to distinguish between gunfire and other loud noises like fireworks. In addition, alarms are being sounded over the technology’s potential to increase the number of highly charged law enforcement interactions in police districts with large minority populations.
“It sends police racing into communities searching, often in vain, for gunfire,” said Jessey Neves, a spokeswoman for the MacArthur Justice Center. “Any resident in the area will be a target of police suspicion or worse. These volatile deployments can go wrong in an instant.”
ShotSpotter has never done a scientifically valid study to determine whether its system can reliably tell the difference between the sound of gunfire and other loud noises like firecrackers, cars backfiring, construction noises, helicopters, and other harmless sounds. […]
The City of Chicago is one of ShotSpotter’s two largest customers, accounting for 18% of its annual revenue in 2020.
Results show that [acoustic gunshot detector systems] simply seem to replace traditional calls for service and do so less efficiently and at a greater monetary cost to departments. Given the tepid results in guiding police to the scenes of crime and given the hidden costs of these systems illustrated here, AGDS might not be well-suited for the audience the technology is marketed toward. High-volume agencies will likely experience substantial increases in their call volumes with remarkably little to show for it, at a cost that might have taxpayers questioning the logic behind the expense. While this technology can be useful, especially from an analytical point of view, it is difficult to see how agencies benefit from expensive technology that increases financial strain on departments with its only discernable impact being fewer founded crime incidents.
Company officials say ShotSpotter improves police relationships with communities by enhancing investigations, more quickly transporting shooting victims to hospitals and responding to gunfire even if no one calls 911, which they say happens in most instances.
“Our technology fills the gap in Chicago and 110 other cities across the United States, helping deploy officers to crime in real-time, saving lives,” ShotSpotter said in a statement.
“I think it’s hard to justify spending $33 million on a tool that sends police hunting for nonexistent gunfire almost nine times out of 10.” [Jonathan Manes of the MacArthur Justice Center said.]
In a press conference Monday, Mayor Lightfoot said the technology plays an important part of the city’s overall crime detection system.
“I’m not confident those numbers are actually accurate, but here’s what I do know; ShotSpotter technology, when coupled with cameras that we have in the SDSC rooms, no question whatsoever is a lifesaver,” she said.
Chicago police uses ShotSpotter technology in 12 of its 22 districts. It led officer Eric Stillman to the area of 24th and South Sawyer before the deadly shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo.
In 2018, the City of Chicago entered a $33 million, three-year contract with ShotSpotter. Chicago’s contract with ShotSpotter expires August 19, 2021.
Lightfoot said residents shouldn’t get the idea that the technology is going away.
Stand for Children Illinois has launched a widescale multi-media campaign urging Springfield lawmakers to negotiate a compromise solution for an elected Chicago school board structure that puts students first and on which all sides agree.
The campaign includes a six-figure television buy in the Chicago and Springfield markets, as well as integrated digital, mail, and telephone programs. The campaign urges constituents to reach out to their state senators and representatives and tell them that, when it comes to reforming the Chicago School Board, putting our students first must be their first priority.
It’s time for Springfield to reform the Chicago School Board and politicians and interest groups are facing off with ideas that serve their interests.
Political appointments versus costly elections? A large board or a small board?
Here’s a suggestion: Find a compromise. Choose the best ideas from each side and create a system with diversity, a voice for parents and teachers, and accountability to taxpayers.
Call your legislator. Tell them to support a compromise and put kids over politics.
Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot and Governor J.B. Pritzker today joined elected officials, tourism backers and labor leaders to announce the return of the annual Chicago Auto Show, a marquee event that draws tourists from around the world. While the Auto Show marks the first large convention to take place since the COVID-19 pandemic began, officials expect to welcome other conventions and tourist events this summer with safety precautions.
The Chicago Auto Show will be held at McCormick Place from July 15 to 19 and will incorporate several innovative safety features – including being held indoors and outdoors for the first time since it was held in Chicago in 1901. It is the nation’s largest and longest-running auto show.
“Around this time last year, McCormick Place was turned an alternate care facility that significantly aided our city during the first wave of COVID-19—making today’s announcement all the more special,” said Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot. “In the same spirit of collaboration between government, healthcare, community, and corporate partners, we are now able to bring conventions back to our beloved convention center in a way that is safe and reflective of our progress in slowing and stopping the spread of this virus. I look forward to seeing the McCormick Place reopen its doors for the Chicago Auto Show this July and further enhance our city’s ongoing Open Chicago initiative.”
“With strong public health protocols in place, the Chicago Auto Show will be the first large convention to take place in Illinois since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, setting the stage for the safe return of big events in the months to come,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “The lifesaving power of vaccinations and the hard work by the people of our city and state has led us here. In recent weeks, we have seen our statewide COVID case rates and hospitalizations flatten and begin to fall, demonstrating a surge far short of the one we saw over the fall and winter. To be clear, our fight against the virus isn’t over yet – but things are getting better.”
McCormick Place and the Chicago Auto Show have worked closely with health and tourism officials to detail mitigation strategies to ensure the safety of every attendee, starting with a lower overall capacity for attendees. Among the safety measures in place:
• a move to Hall F in West Building with 470,000 sq ft of indoor space and 100,000 sq ft of outdoor space;
• timed entrance windows and staggered entry to prevent congestion on the show floor and at arrival;
• requirement to wear face masks at all times;
• sanitization stations throughout the event;
• contactless delivery for tickets;
• temperatures will be scanned and a medical questionnaire must be filled out before entry is allowed into the event.
As the State of Illinois prepares to move into the less restrictive “Bridge Phase,” this announcement is also part of the broader “Open Chicago” initiative to safely and fully reopen the city.
Given the continuous downward trend of the COVID-19 numbers, the state of Illinois and City of Chicago have aligned on guidance for conventions returning later this summer. This news follows last week’s announcement of Expanded Phase 4 regulations and the City’s Bridge to Phase 5 of reopening. Chicago has made significant progress in reversing the rise in COVID-19 metrics that started in March and caused the City to pause the reopening plan. Since last week’s announcement, COVID-19 test positivity rate has continued to drop and is now under 5%.
“We have seen steady progress in recent weeks with a downward trend in our leading COVID metrics and more and more people stepping up to get vaccinated, which is so important in getting us out of this pandemic,” said CDPH Commissioner Allison Arwady M.D. “That has made this exciting day possible.”
“The trends are encouraging, but we must be cautious as we move forward,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “As more venues reopen, it is critical that we increase the number of people who are vaccinated. Immunity is how we stop transmission of this virus, but we need greater community immunity and that requires as many of us as possible getting vaccinated as soon as possible.”
Statewide, 55 percent of individuals 16 and over and 79 percent of individual 65 and over have been vaccinated, helping bring down increases in new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. As these metrics continue to stabilize and decline, the state could soon move into the “Bridge Phase” of the Restore Illinois Reopening Plan. For conventions, this will mean events with the lesser of 1,000 people or 60 percent capacity. Following a 28-day period of continued stability or decline in key COVID-19 metrics, the state would then move into Phase 5, with all capacity limits lifted. The State is on track to be in Phase 5 in July.
“From day one, our priority has been to ensure the health of our guests and our employees, and as we re-open we will continue to be relentless in this area,” said Larita Clark, CEO of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA), owner of McCormick Place. “Importantly, these health measures will not take away from the experience. We know that our guests, whether it is a family wanting to check out the new Jeep Bronco or a doctor seeking the latest clinical trial data, come here for a reason. We are glad that we are able to continue to provide the outstanding experience our customers expect without compromising on health and safety.”
Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, McCormick Place has been worked closely with public health officials and followed all guidance regarding meetings and events. In 2020, the entire McCormick Place campus was awarded GBAC STAR accreditation, the gold standard for health and safety in the industry. In January 2021, Choose Chicago and McCormick Place launched Healthy Meetings Chicago, a virtual experience illustrating the new convention experience.
“Prior to COVID, McCormick Place operations generated more than $1.9 billion in economic impact to the city and state,” said Glenn Eden, Chair of the Choose Chicago Board of Directors. “As we take this step forward and move toward reopening, not only is this a positive development for the health of our city, but also for the health of our economy.”
“We stand committed to providing a safe environment for all involved and will carefully adhere to the health and safety protocols and guidelines set forth by city and state officials,” said Dave Sloan, Chicago Auto Show general manager. “McCormick Place is an important economic engine for our city and state, and we take very seriously the responsibility that comes with helping to get it running again.”
Based on the trajectory of public health metrics, officials are confident that the Auto Show and other conventions can be safely held this summer in line with best practices. However, if conditions change significantly in an unforeseen way, these plans will need to be adjusted, including the announced guidelines.
If CDPH or IDPH determines that case rates or hospitalization rates are too high to allow for the events outlined above, the guidelines will be modified.
…Adding… CFL…
The Chicago Federation of Labor released the following statement regarding the return of the Chicago Auto Show this summer:
“The Chicago labor movement is thrilled to welcome the Chicago Auto Show back to McCormick Place this summer,” said CFL President Bob Reiter. “Not only will the Chicago Auto Show put thousands of convention, tourism, and hospitality workers back on the job after an extremely difficult year, but this move demonstrates to the world that Chicago’s economy can and will bounce back from this crisis stronger than ever. I want to thank Mayor Lightfoot, Governor Pritzker, MPEA CEO Larita Clark, Choose Chicago CEO David Whitaker, Chicago Automobile Trade Association President Dave Sloan, and Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association President/CEO Michael Jacobson for their partnership and commitment to bringing the Chicago Auto Show back this summer! This move would not be possible without millions of people across Chicago and Illinois getting vaccinated, so let’s all continue to follow the guidance of public health officials and move forward with reopening our city.”
“The return of the Chicago Auto Show is welcome news to the workers of McCormick Place, countless auto show fans, and the entire city of Chicago,” said CFL Secretary-Treasurer and MPEA Vice Chair Don Villar. “The Auto Show is a beloved tradition that brings fun, excitement, and economic activity to Chicago. While we all need to continue to follow public health guidelines and keep ourselves safe, this move marks a huge step forward in reopening Chicago and will put countless people back to work.”
Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Employers in Illinois provide prescription drug coverage for nearly 6.7 million Illinoisans. In order to help keep care more affordable, employers work with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), who deploy a variety of tools to reduce prescription drug costs and help improve health outcomes. In addition to helping employers, PBMs also work with the Illinois Medicaid program in the same way to help control costs. Over the last five years, PBMs have saved the state and taxpayers nearly $340 million.
Today, Illinois faces a multibillion budget shortfall as more Illinoisans are relying on Medicaid to help meet their health care coverage needs. As legislators work to address these challenges, one way to help ensure continued cost savings is by strengthening the PBM tools that the State and employers use, which are poised to save employers, consumers and the State $39 billion over the next 10 years. These are meaningful savings that will help continue to contain costs, ensure consumer access to medicines and drive savings in public health programs.
Amid a pandemic and economic challenges, now is the time to strengthen, not limit, the tools that employers, consumers and the State rely on to manage costs and ensure consumers can access the medicines they need.
* Chicago City Clerk Anna Valencia, state Sen. Michael Hastings, D-Tinley Park, and Chicago Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd) participated last night in a Zoom event sponsored by Ald. Gilbert Villegas. Alexi Giannoulias said he had a scheduling conflict. From Rachel Hinton’s story…
For Dowell, that includes making transactions “as easy and safe for consumers and employees as possible” and issuing multi-year license plate stickers.
Hastings told those on the call “what matters most to me, is what matters most to you.” He also gave ideas for economic development, such as lowering fees related to starting a business.
Valencia’s vision for the office includes creating an app for taxpayers to make their appointments and pay fees online. She also pledged to boost the state’s libraries, including looking into expanding broadband access and grants. […]
Asked how they’d run a statewide campaign, Hastings said he has the support of colleagues throughout the state. Valencia pointed to connections she made while running U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s 2014 re-election campaign that she said could help her build a “diverse coalition” to get elected.
Dowell acknowledged that of the three candidates she was “a little late to the party.
* Gov. Pritzker was asked yesterday if we’ll see an Illinois State Fair this August…
I am very much looking forward to the Illinois State Fair. We’ve obviously been doing all the planning that’s necessary for it. Barring some highly unusual event occurring that would prevent a large gathering, this is a very large outdoor space, if you’ve not been to the State Fair, this is a very large fairgrounds. I think that the IDPH is working with the Department of Agriculture to make sure that people will be safe. So I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun this summer. It’s in August. I hope everybody will come down to Springfield to enjoy it. And then we have a second state fair down in Du Quoin, Illinois, and that also a lot of fun. And, again, an enormous amount of space out there. I think we’ll have a big crowd and everybody will enjoy it.
A new video offers a better look at music icon Prince during one of his most memorable performances: The absolutely blistering guitar solo he pulled off during an all-star rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
The moment came during a tribute to George Harrison, who was previously inducted as a member of the Beatles but was being inducted posthumously as a solo artist that year. Prince, then a newly minted member of the Hall of Fame himself, stole the show with a solo that quickly became a career highlight, and it went viral online after his unexpected death in 2016.
Now, Joel Gallen, who produced and directed the event, has released a new cut of the performance.
Illinois could ease more COVID-19 restrictions as soon as next week, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday if health metrics continue in a positive direction.
That would mean the state shifts to a “Bridge Phase,” that increases capacity at festivals, social events, concert and other activities.
“It looks to me like we’re on a decent trajectory. I can’t say exactly what day that is,” Pritkzer said. “It looks to me, if you look at all the hospitalization admissions data, we’re in decent shape and moving exactly as I would hope toward the Bridge Phase.”
After a decline in COVID-19 infections in February through mid-March, cases and hospitalizations started to climb bringing fears of a significant surge although metrics have been inching back down.
The Illinois economy shrank by 4% in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on many of its sectors, although there were signs of a recovery taking place late in the year.
Those preliminary numbers, released last week by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, showed that the leisure, hospitality and food service sector was the hardest hit by the pandemic, reporting a nearly 30% drop in economic output for the year. […]
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real gross domestic product decreased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2020. Utah, with a 0.1% shrinkage rate, fared the best, while Hawaii’s state economy shrank 8%. The average shrinkage rate for the U.S. as a whole was 3.5%. […]
When the numbers are broken out on a quarterly basis, however, the biggest drop in economic output occurred during the 2nd quarter, April-June, when Illinois was under the most severe economic restrictions. The economy began to pick up in the 3rd quarter, and by the 4th quarter was growing at an annualized rate of 3.5%.
Even as the 2018 Macon County sheriff’s election between incumbent Tony Brown and challenger Jim Root remains unsettled, the focus could soon turn to 2022 as another familiar name appears to be eyeing the office.
Howard G. Buffett, the 66-year-old Decatur philanthropist, businessman and former sheriff, has formed a candidate political committee to support a possible run for sheriff, according to campaign finance documents filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections last October.
According to the documents, Buffett plans to run as a Republican, which could set up a head-to-head matchup with incumbent Brown, a Democrat who won by a single vote in 2018.
Buffett is Brown’s direct predecessor, serving out the final 14 months of former Sheriff Thomas Schneider’s term. Schneider is listed as chairman of the “Committee to Elect Buffett for Sheriff.”
Buffett has been the main reason why Decatur has sworn off cannabis dispensaries.
Effingham County will be looking for a new sheriff after Effingham County Sheriff David Mahon announced his June 1 retirement during the quarterly Effingham County Public Safety meeting this week.
Mahon ran as a Republican for Sheriff in 2014, defeating Darren Feldkamp, John Gardner and Mike Schutzbach – all Republican candidates in the 2014 primary election. He became Sheriff in December of 2014. […]
“I was wanting to run one term and wasn’t sure about running the second,” Mahon said. “When I signed my petitions for a second term, I had no grandchildren and none on the way.”
“Now, two and a half years later, I have two grandchildren in East Missouri – 500 miles away. And my son has one on the way in Oregon,” Mahon added. “I turned 60 this last year and I think it’s a good time to bring some new people up.”
In a Letter to the Editor, Mahon said, “While my decision to retire is based on my personal life changes, this decision is reaffirmed by the pending anti-law enforcement legislation coming out of Springfield.”
In a Letter to the Editor, Mahon said, “While my decision to retire is based on my personal life changes, this decision is reaffirmed by the pending anti-law enforcement legislation coming out of Springfield.”
Friends, we are seeing a lot of law enforcement retire due to what’s coming out of Springfield. I will continue working to restore respect to law enforcement and keep our communities safe, and as your next Governor, I’ll work to reverse Pritzker’s radical agenda against law enforcement!
Yeah, I’m thinking there won’t be a shortage of candidates to replace Sheriff Mahon.
* Two House Democrats talk to the Daily Herald about the budget…
“In the governor’s introduced budget, he is not putting in the $350 million for K-12, but that’s not going very well with both Democrats and Republicans,” [Rep. Fred Crespo, D-Hoffman Estates] said. “(Republicans and Democrats) coalesced over that and agreed that’s not a good idea.”
While members of the House plan to push for the education funding, they also recognize the state will face a $1.4 billion revenue shortage and cuts need to be made somewhere. Where exactly those cuts happen will be a source of debate among Democrats, Republicans and Pritzker in the weeks before the legislature’s scheduled May 31 adjournment.
“We need to look at: ‘Where do we cut?’ and ‘Can we cut enough to close that hole?’” Crespo said.
Pritzker’s proposal also calls for a 10% cut to what towns get from the state’s Local Government Distributive Fund, a pool of income tax money. Crespo and Kifowit also oppose that proposal.
“I am strongly against it,” Crespo said. “Any cuts to the local distributive funds could very easily result in an increase in property taxes, and in my mind and my constituents’, our biggest problem and our biggest issue is property taxes.”
Keep in mind, the American Rescue Plan is sending $5 billion to Illinois’ K-12 schools, $2.3 billion to counties, $2.4 billion to larger cities and $681 million to smaller municipalities. The General Assembly could also impose a temporary property tax freeze on municipalities.
* The Question: Should the Local Government Distributive Fund be left alone in the state budget this year? Make sure to explain your answer.
Governor JB Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Central Management Services (CMS) today announced the issuance of a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the sale of the James R. Thompson Center (JRTC) at 100 West Randolph Street. Information on the RFP can be viewed at www.illinois.gov/ThompsonCenter4Sale and www.bidbuy.illinois.gov.
“The sale of the Thompson Center has been discussed for nearly 20 years and we are taking another important step to making it a reality,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Selling the property provides a unique opportunity to maximize taxpayer savings, create thousands of union jobs, generate millions of dollars in real estate taxes to benefit the City of Chicago and spur economic development. My team looks forward to working with the city as we move forward.”
At the beginning of his administration, Governor Pritzker directed CMS to optimize the State’s real estate portfolio, reduce operating expenses, and enhance workforce and workplace performance and efficiency. As part of its due diligence, CMS determined the sale of the JRTC was in the State’s best interest as the facility is oversized, outdated and expensive to operate.
Due to prolonged deferred maintenance and delayed capital projects, it is estimated that the cost to bring the JRTC into a state of good repair exceeds $325 million and is projected to increase to over $525 million by 2026. By selling the facility, the State can relocate its core services to more appropriate and efficient replacement spaces. This strategic relocation effort has already begun, with the below-asking price purchase of 555 W. Monroe, and will reduce operating costs, increase productivity, and better serve constituents.
“Issuing this RFP moves the State a step closer to selling the JRTC and actualizing more sustainable and efficient governance practices on behalf of Illinois residents,” CMS Director Janel L. Forde. “The sale of this prime property will not only save millions in annual operating costs but also makes way for significant economic opportunities in Chicago’s Central Business District.”
The State has been reviewing its downtown Chicago real estate portfolio to identify opportunities for efficiency improvements, space consolidation, and other strategies that produce real savings while maintaining a productive workforce. In January 2021, the State acquired 555 West Monroe and announced its intent to relocate over 1,000 employees to this new facility, including employees who work in nearby leased facilities as well as those currently located at the JRTC. The State leases office space in seven properties in the Loop, at a cost of $21.3 million in annual base rent and operating costs and will continue to seek consolidation and savings opportunities into State-owned real estate.
Opened in 1985, the JRTC is a 17-story building, encompassing approximately 1.2 million square feet of enclosed area of which the State occupies nearly 780,000 square feet. Comprised of a full city block in the heart of the Chicago Loop, the JRTC site represents a rare and exciting development opportunity. The site is unique in its combination of size, transit connectivity, and adjacency to world-class amenities. The site’s central location affords close proximity to numerous world-class amenities, including world-renowned museums and parks, the Chicago Theater District, the Chicago Riverwalk and Lakefront.
Redevelopment of the property would spur economic activity on the LaSalle Street corridor and is estimated to create up to 5,500 union jobs during the development and more than 15,000 jobs after completion.
Responses to the RFP for the sale of the James R. Thompson Center are due at 3 p.m. on August 16, 2021. A copy of the RFP is available on the General Services Illinois Procurement Bulletin, also referred to as the Bulletin or BidBuy at www.bidbuy.illinois.gov. Additional information on JRTC and the amenities of the City of Chicago are provided at www.illinois.gov/ThompsonCenter4Sale.
The Pre-proposal conference meeting will be held on May 18, 2021. Interested parties must register for the event at: https://illinois.webex.com/illinois/onstage/g.php?MTID=edfeebde1b8deacf9fc430c309574456e
In April 2019, Governor Pritzker signed SB 886 (Public Act 100-1184) that outlines the process for the sale of the property. The bill provides for the sale of the JRTC by a competitive request for proposals process within two years. This bill was amended due to COVID-19 and the revised timeline is April 5, 2022.
Illinois schools may soon dramatically alter the way they perform active shooter drills, leading the way for other states to adopt methods that, ideally, leave students and staff less traumatized by a process intended to protect them.
A bill amending the state’s School Safety Drill Act recently passed the Illinois House unanimously and now awaits a vote in the Senate. It calls for parents or guardians to be notified prior to an active shooter drill, for the school to announce drills ahead of time, for the drills to avoid simulations that mimic an actual school shooting incident and for mental health professionals to be included in the planning of the drills.
Yes, yes, yes, yes and one more yes for good measure.
“This sounds like a really good bill,” said Melissa Reeves, associate professor of psychology at Winthrop University in South Carolina and past president of the National Association of School Psychologists. “If it passes, I’m definitely going to be using that as an example of what other states can do.”
…House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch should free House Bill 2994 from his Rules Committee. Sponsored by Tim Butler, R-Springfield, the bill would allow a vote on government consolidation in his district. Last week, when the bill appeared to be dying in committee, he chastised Welch for sitting on the bill for political reasons.
Move the bill, Mr. Speaker. Voters in Butler’s district should be able to decide whether to combine their governments.
The elimination of any one of these tiny entities doesn’t amount to much by itself. But a sustained drive to reduce their number would pay off in the long run. It brings to mind what Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu of South Africa said: “There is only one way to eat an elephant — a bite at a time.”
* But here’s a counter-point in an SJ-R op-ed by Bill Houlihan…
Sangamon County is home to twenty-six townships, each with their own elected township officials. Representative Butler’s bill only targets the most diverse township with Sangamon County, Capital Township. Under the pretense of “eliminating bureaucracy and inefficiency,” Butler and local Republicans seek to disenfranchise a significant number of voters within our county. For the decades-long total control local Republicans have held on Capital Township, there were never any issues with the services provided and dissolving this essential level of government was never mentioned.
What has changed since 2016 when Representative Butler and local Republicans started their self-serving crusade? Where is Representative Butler’s bill to dissolve Ball, Fancy Creek, or Rochester Townships in Sangamon County? I cannot help but think that part of Representative Butler’s newfound interest in eliminating Capital Township may stem from the fact that after three decades of total Republican control over Capital Township, voters have overwhelmingly elected a young, dynamic black woman not once but twice, Democrat Lakeisha Purchase.
While I question Representative Butler’s intent with this legislation, what is not in question is what will happen if this bill is enacted. Unlike in every other township in Sangamon County, voters in Capital Township will not have the same rights to elect the people that serve them and guide how their township tax dollars are used. Instead, county government Republicans will be given unchecked access to Capital Township tax dollars that will be used to pad their own budgets and personal paychecks. All while not having to be concerned about Capital Township voters being able to hold them accountable in the next election. Simply put, this is taxation without representation.
A lawmaker’s long-sought resolution to create a new state by separating the rest of Illinois from Cook County was the subject of an Illinois House hearing this week.
State Rep. Brad Halbrook, R-Shelbyville, has for years filed resolutions at the statehouse to create a new state out of all the counties with the exception of Cook County. He had his first hearing on HR 102 Wednesday, saying predictions of a state being controlled by a major urban center have come true in Illinois.
“There are different needs, there are different interests, different cultures, different economy,” Halbrook told the House State Government Administration Committee on Wednesday. “A one-size-fits-all and a top-down approach does not work.”
The committee chair asked Halbrook to come back with more data and support from the 101 counties outside of Cook. Halbrook noted that a separate movement has produced such support from nearly a third of the counties.
* The school bus lobby (including local school districts) is quite strong here. I’ve seen safety measures come and go for decades…
There are two bills making their way through the Illinois General Assembly, with the main focus of making sure drivers can see the stop signs on school buses better.
Senate Bill 1808 and House Bill 2584 are similar. The goal is to give schools the option to make stop signs on buses easier to see.
The bills would allow the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) to create a pilot program to test the safety of equipment like extended stop arms, which currently aren’t allowed to be used.
* I bought a new mobile phone the other day and set it up over the weekend. It takes some pretty good pictures…
* The phone didn’t have the same ringtone choices as my old phone, so I decided to create one for text notifications. As you’ll recall, the House conducted session last May at Springfield’s convention center. The setup didn’t include the loud ringing bell to announce that voting was open, so Rep. Will Davis would say “Ding!” at the appropriate moment when he was in the Speaker’s chair. I isolated Davis’ sound effect for my new ringtone…
Thanks to John Amdor for the video clip.
* The phone’s alarm tones were also different, and the one I chose sounded a lot like King Harvest’s “Dancing In the Moonlight,” or at least it sounded like that in the morning fog. As a result, I’ve been humming that song all day today. So I just decided to make the actual song into an alarm…
SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 2,049 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 28 additional deaths.
- Cook County: 1 female 50s, 2 female 60s, 2 males 60s, 4 females 70s, 1 male 70s, 4 males 80s, 1 female 90s, 2 males 90s
- DuPage County: 1 male 60s, 1 male 70s
- Kane County: 1 male 70s
- Knox County: 1 male 80s
- Lake County: 1 male 80s
- Mason County: 1 male 30s, 1 female 60s
- Peoria County: 1 male 60s, 2 females 70s, 1 male 90s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 1,341,777 cases, including 22,047 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 49,473 specimens for a total of 22,872,035. As of last night, 1,963 individuals in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 479 patients were in the ICU and 249 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from April 26-May 2, 2021 is 3.4%. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from April 26-May 2, 2021 is 4.0%.
The total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses for Illinois is 11,802,395. A total of 9,410,057 vaccines have been administered in Illinois as of last midnight. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 78,440 doses. Yesterday, 16,920 doses were reported administered in Illinois. Data from this weekend from several pharmacies (Walgreens, Albertsons, CVS) is not yet available so the doses administered yesterday are likely to be low. The missing doses from this weekend will be reflected in numbers in the next couple days.
*All data are provisional and will change. In order to rapidly report COVID-19 information to the public, data are being reported in real-time. Information is constantly being entered into an electronic system and the number of cases and deaths can change as additional information is gathered. For health questions about COVID-19, call the hotline at 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov.
An inspector general’s report on the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs LaSalle Veterans’ Home is a maddening story of incompetence and chaos at every level.
The IG report, released Friday, tells the story of an allegedly AWOL agency director; an in-over-his-head chief of staff; a crucial failure to fill an important upper management position; an unconscionably delayed IDVA management response at all levels to a clearly and rapidly deteriorating situation both in the surrounding communities outside the home and when the virus inevitably spread inside the facility; an unprepared and woefully uninformed management on multiple issues, including basics about personal protection equipment; an abject failure to properly train and equip staff; multiple failures to ask for outside help and accept it when offered; and staff infighting and managerial timidity.
Thirty-six veterans died during the LaSalle catastrophe last year, a quarter of the facility’s population. Frankly, after reading the report, I was surprised more people didn’t die. It’s that bad.
The trouble started with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s hasty appointment of a state legislator to fill the IDVA director job after his initial appointee abruptly dropped out — a mystery that he has not explained to this day.
According to the report, after state Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia became IDVA director, she apparently “abdicated” her responsibilities to her chief of staff, Tony Kolbeck. Kolbeck’s heart was in the right place but he should not have been given that job, partly because he didn’t have the requisite knowledge and experience, but also because the administration never appointed a Senior Homes Administrator for the agency. That administrator would’ve had the “medical understanding to provide meaningful leadership,” according to the IG report.
Kolbeck essentially served as the director, the chief of staff and the Senior Homes Administrator all at once, a near impossibility during “normal” times, let alone during a deadly crisis.
After Director Chapa LaVia finally quit under pressure, Pritzker brought in a new acting director.
Terry Prince is a buttoned-down 31-year Navy man with an abundance of healthcare management experience in the Navy and in his last job running Ohio’s veterans homes. One of those homes, the fifth largest in the country, had an outbreak last year, but it was contained and the fatality rate was a fraction of what it was at LaSalle and at many private nursing homes in the country. Like everyone in that sector, he’s not unblemished, but he’s never been accused of incompetence that I could find.
Prince’s extensive management experience is something the IDVA has lacked for years. But he is also a student of management theory and mentioned several management training models he admires.
I asked Prince about an item in the IG report that the LaSalle home managers refrained from disciplining workers out of fear of retaliation. I pointed out that this is prevalent in state government here because upper management too often won’t back up lower management in personnel disputes. Prince said he created a program in Ohio called “I got your six” to address that very issue. “The management team has to know that their director, assistant director has their backs,” he rightly said.
Prince wants to subject the veterans’ homes to accreditation and the federal government’s Medicaid rating system. “I want evaluations from anybody who will come and evaluate our buildings because I believe that the more inspections we have, the better,” he said.
He’s a military veteran and these are veterans’ homes, and Prince says he intends to put employees through regular training drills to make sure they are up to dealing with emergencies.
But he also talked about trying to work more cooperatively with AFSCME, something he claimed to have had success with in Ohio. Prince said Illinois Department of Human Services Secretary Grace Hou recommended that he make himself “crazy available” to union personnel, which he says he’s doing. Hou has had significant success in dealing with AFSCME. The IDVA, on the other hand, has been notable for its hostility toward the union.
“I want our veterans in our veterans’ homes to live their best possible life,” Prince said. “I want their star to shine bright in our facilities. I know we have the teams to do it. We just have to make sure that we’re training them and holding them accountable and saying, ‘Here’s our expectations.’”
Prince is no doubt an impressive person, but there is no longer any room for failure at that agency. He gets zero slack. To put it bluntly, if we can’t stop killing our veterans, then we as a state need to get out of this business.
* Meanwhile, here’s a press release…
U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a combat Veteran and former Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs (IDVA), today urged the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to assist the IDVA following a Illinois Department of Human Services Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) report released last week, which documents a number of failures within IDVA leadership in addressing and preventing a fatal COVID-19 outbreak at the Illinois Veterans Home (IVH) LaSalle. In a letter to VA Secretary McDonough, Durbin and Duckworth asked the VA to ensure that IDVA has the appropriate protocols in place, as well as training and support it needs in order to continue to protect Illinois Veterans from COVID-19 or any future infectious disease outbreaks.
We write to request urgent assistance for the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs (IDVA) in light of an Illinois Department of Human Services Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) report released last week, which documents a number of failures within IDVA leadership in addressing and preventing a fatal COVID-19 outbreak at the Illinois Veterans Home (IVH) LaSalle. During the time of the outbreak last fall, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) participated in inspections alongside the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), helping to identify a myriad of problems and detailing a full-time VA staffer to provide technical assistance to the State on pandemic concerns and protocols. We urge the VA to return to Illinois once again to ensure that IDVA has the appropriate protocols in place, as well as training and support it needs in order to continue to protect Illinois Veterans from COVID-19 or any future infectious disease outbreaks.
We understand that the risks associated with the deadly coronavirus are only increased in long-term care facilities. However, as the OIG report indicates, the proper implementation and execution of infectious disease protocols can help control outbreaks. By fall 2020, the potential effect of COVID-19 on such facilities was well-documented, and as the pandemic surged across the State, including in LaSalle County, more than 200 Veterans and staff at IVH LaSalle had tested positive for COVID-19, resulting in 36 Veteran deaths.
The OIG report ultimately found a lack of preparation, poor communication and training, and a serious lapse in infectious-disease protocols. The report also noted that IDVA failed to implement a number of basic Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations, including formalizing a COVID-19 preparedness and response plan, resulting in actions that were “inefficient, reactive, and, at times, chaotic.” The report also notes that IVH Manteno and IVH Quincy faced related, fatal outbreaks. While the death tolls were smaller at these two facilities, the urgency to take corrective action remains the same.
We appreciate that the VA has provided technical assistance to the State of Illinois over the years, including during a deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak that took place at IVH Quincy between 2015 and 2018. Today, while we recognize that Governor Pritzker has taken a number of proactive steps—including personnel changes to replace the IDVA Director and oversight efforts such as requiring this OIG investigation—we remain worried about IDVA’s future preparedness against both the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other infectious disease outbreaks.
Countless families have entrusted the care of their loved ones—Veterans who have served and scarified for this country with honor, and deserve the highest standards—to the State of Illinois. We urge the VA to help ensure that our State is up to the task in the face of challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
* And from the ILGOP…
“The Governor ran for office in 2018 blaming his predecessor for the Legionnaires outbreak at the Quincy Veterans’ Home that tragically took the life of 14 American heroes. Pritzker said the incident revealed a callous regard for human life and a fatal lack of leadership,” reminded ILGOP spokesman Joe Hackler. “36 dead veterans later at LaSalle and the Governor is on record as now saying ‘these things can happen’ and has refused to take full responsibility for this tragedy on his watch. The IG report makes clear that candidate Pritzker in 2018 would think Governor Pritzker’s administration is fatally incompetent and responsible for the deaths of 36 American heroes.”
* Vaccine passports not arriving — or required — in Illinois, Pritzker says: Gov. J.B. Pritzker is taking a pass on the “Vax Pass.” Days after Chicago public health officials teased the idea of a COVID-19 vaccine passport that residents would need for admission to select concerts and other crowded summer events, Pritzker on Friday said the state won’t be implementing any mandatory system for Illinoisans to prove they’ve been fully immunized against the coronavirus.
The mass inoculation of millions of American children against polio in 1955, like the vaccinations of millions of American adults against COVID-19 in 2021, was a triumph of science.
But the polio vaccine had overwhelming public acceptance, while stubborn pockets of vaccine hesitancy persist across the U.S. for the COVID-19 vaccine. Why the difference? One reason, historians say, is that in 1955, many Americans had an especially deep respect for science.
“If you had to pick a moment as the high point of respect for scientific discovery, it would have been then,” says David M. Oshinsky, a medical historian at New York University and the author of Polio: An American Story. “After World War II, you had antibiotics rolling off the production line for the first time. People believed infectious disease was [being] conquered. And then this amazing vaccine is announced. People couldn’t get it fast enough.”
Now that the rush to get vaccinated has slowed to a trickle, health officials are shifting gears to convince the rest of Central Illinois to roll up their sleeves.
At this point, about 60% of Tri-County residents have not received even a single dose.
Reasons for this are numerous. Some people simply haven’t gotten around to it yet, and some have transportation issues or, lacking computer skills, aren’t sure how to get an appointment.
Others distrust vaccines, a long-standing issue that has been exacerbated in recent years by widening political divisions and a plethora of misleading and downright false information online. There are also concerns about a vaccine that was developed so quickly; some people are waiting to see what happens to others before they get vaccinated.
The problem is that time is of the essence. The longer COVID-19 circulates through the population, the greater the chance it will mutate into a vaccine-resistant form. Health officials want to tamp down the fire now.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver ran a pretty good piece on the vax resistance topic last night. Click here to watch it, but some of the language is NSFW.
As Oliver noted, the hardcore anti-vaxxers and careless (or worse) news media outlets are successfully sowing doubt in about a quarter of the population.
The bigger the site, the cheaper the per-unit cost of the vaccine dose. Megasites can average $62 per dose per day, while the smallest sites, averaging 2,500 square feet, approach nearly $200 per dose.
Then there’s the one-time costs, assuming the vaccine sites are open for three months: the freezers, the message boards in the parking lots, chairs and tables, Internet hotspots. For a megasite, the one-time costs can reach nearly $1.5 million. For the smallest sites, $140,000.
And finally the materials: needles, syringes, alcohol prep pads, Band-Aids, gloves, masks, shields, oxygen, Epi-Pens, antihistamines. The range from small to mega, each day: $3,000 to $22,000.
What the spreadsheet and the Adams County figures underscore: It can be considerably expensive, on a per-shot basis, to vaccinate those in more rural or underserved areas of the country.
The April University of Illinois Flash Index jumped to 101.5 from its 97.8 level in March, roaring past the 100-level that divides growth and decline.
This increase was the largest in the history of the index, although the declines of March and April 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis were larger in absolute terms. See the full Flash Index Archive.
As with last month, the strong April reading was the result of both a strong economy and certain technical factors. “The index’s monthly inputs are now being compared to the depressed numbers of last year, indicating marked growth,” said University of Illinois economist J. Fred Giertz, who compiles the monthly index for the University of Illinois System’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs (IGPA). “In fact, the April index may underestimate growth because some of the various federal stimulus payments are not directly included in the index’s components.” In constructing the index, individual Illinois income tax collections are used as a surrogate for income, but many of these federal payments are not taxable and do not directly impact tax receipts.
Notwithstanding these technical issues, the Illinois and national economies are exhibiting real strength. Analysts are nearly unanimous in their optimism for the remainder of 2021. First-quarter GDP increased at a 6.4% annual rate. The unemployment rate continues to decline, although it is still more than two percentage points above pre-crisis levels. The unprecedented magnitude of federal income support programs may be slowing the decline.
Illinois’ unemployment rate is still more than one percentage point above the national rate. All three components of the index (individual income, corporate and sales tax receipts) were up strongly from the same month last year.
The Flash Index is normally a weighted average of Illinois growth rates in corporate earnings, consumer spending and personal income as estimated from receipts for corporate income, individual income, and retail sales taxes. These are adjusted for inflation before growth rates are calculated. The growth rate for each component is then calculated for the 12-month period using data through April 30, 2021.
Even though more than a year has passed since the advent of the crisis, ad hoc adjustments are still needed to deal with the timing of the tax receipts resulting from state and Federal changes in payment dates both this and last year.
While the bill wouldn’t give the legislative inspector general the full level of autonomy those who’ve held the office say is necessary, it would make the position a full-time job with posted office hours — which [Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope] said would be a waste of taxpayer money. She now works on an as-needed basis.
“Even if you had office hours, there would be a person sitting in the office with nothing to do,” Pope said at a recent Senate hearing “The demand for hours is just simply not there, which is a good thing in my opinion.”
Lawmakers argue that having a full-time inspector general would an important signal to the public.
“While it may not be a good perception to have an office of people that aren’t working full time, I also don’t think it’s a good perception, visual, to have an office that’s closed, that the lights are out, that nobody knows when it’s open either,” Gillespie said at the hearing. “I think it’s important for our residents of Illinois to start to establish trust in their legislature if they know that this is something we’re taking this seriously.”
After this week’s release of decennial Census apportionments, the 2022 redistricting battles are underway. If you’ve been reading the press, you know what to expect: Republicans will gerrymander relentlessly to squeeze more GOP House seats out of red and purple states, while Democrats will model high-minded good governance and draw maps without regard to politics.
OK, maybe not exactly. The post-2010 liberal zeal for nonpartisan map-drawing seems to be abating in places where Democrats are in power. See how the political winds are blowing in two blue states, Illinois and New York, that each lost a congressional seat in the latest Census count.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker campaigned in 2018 against partisan gerrymandering, saying he would “pledge to veto” any 2022 map drawn by the state Legislature. He insisted on “an independent commission to handle creating a new legislative map.” Last month Republicans in the Legislature proposed to create a redistricting commission appointed by the state’s Supreme Court.
But as the partisan pens meet paper, Gov. Pritzker now says he’ll be satisfied with a map drawn by his legislative allies. In a recent press conference he walked back his veto pledge and scored Republicans for objecting to Democratic-controlled redistricting. “I hope the Republicans will choose to work with Democrats on the map. Right now it looks like they’re just saying no,” he said.
* But the Journal is just being the Journal. The bottom line for Kyle Kondik at Sabato’s Crystal Ball…
All told, this adds up to a possible 6-1 Republican edge among the new House seats being drawn. Combine that with the loss projections laid out above, and Republicans come out of this hypothetical reapportionment scenario with a net two-seat gain: They lose four seats to the Democrats’ three, but they win six of the seven new seats.
* And this person at Sabato’s Crystal Ball claims that Illinois Democrats made a colossal mistake with their map-making ten years ago…
What was the biggest gerrymandering backfire this decade? — Dems trying to make both IL-12 & IL-13 winnable comes to mind. Rs have had both since 2014. Could've drawn a 61% Obama East St. Louis to Urbana seat. https://t.co/La7gYQicn8
What saved them was the suburbs and exurbs, which reacted strongly against President Trump’s election. The Dems picked up two seats that they’d actually created for Republicans.
* Politico on what comes next after Cheri Bustos’ announcement last week that she won’t run again…
Political insiders say lawmakers will likely redraw Bustos’ 17th District to include all of Rockford and more of Peoria, two cities that are split between Bustos and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (16th) in Rockford, and Bustos and Rep. Darin LaHood (18th) in Peoria. Here’s the current map for reference.
Rockford and Peoria are two urban areas that already lean blue, and pulling them into one district (except for the part of Peoria where LaHood lives) would solidify it as a Democratic district.
At least two Rockford Democrats have already fielded calls about possibly running. Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara told Playbook his focus is “solely on the city of Rockford.” McNamara, who is being sworn in to his second term today, said, “We need someone like Cheri who stands up for cities and towns and the everyday people who live there, not just companies.”
And state Rep. Maurice West II said, “we’ll see.” He said, “It would be smart” to see Rockford represented by one person.
Probably best not to make too many plans before the map is drawn, however. Lauren Underwood’s district needs more Democrats to shore her up, so it’s possible they could move her 14th District 30 miles west to Rockford.
* Dan Vock at the Center for Illinois Politics takes a look at Democratic hints here they they could use ACS number to draw the new district maps…
If Democrats try to redraw their districts with a different set of data, that data will most likely come from the American Community Survey (ACS). The U.S. Census Bureau also produces the ACS, a survey that gives researchers a glimpse of what America looks like in the years between the decennial headcounts.
“The decennial census is designed to capture, in a snapshot, all of the people living in the country on April 1st,” Young says. “The American Community Survey is designed to tell folks how people live in that neighborhood, not who lives there, but how they live.”
Their different purposes mean the Census uses different methods to conduct them.
Census workers fan out into neighborhoods, knock on doors, send postcards and ask neighbors to get an accurate population number for the once-a-decade Census.
But the ACS is essentially a massive poll. It uses sampling to estimate the number of people in an area and many characteristics about them. To do that, the Census Bureau sends surveys to about 3.5 million addresses every month of every year. Those surveys cover many topics not covered by standard Census questionnaires.
* And finally…
I'm thinking if you had repeatedly and aggressively shared horribly false government data over *7 years* and used that false data to argue for major policy changes, then maybe your mea culpa might be a wee bit stronger when you discover the data was false https://t.co/qQJdgHp9oP
A state audit released earlier this year warned that Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office had a “weaknesses in cybersecurity” that potentially left sensitive information on the agency’s computer network “susceptible to cyberattacks and unauthorized disclosure.”
Three weeks ago, a hack resulted in data being stolen from the attorney’s office in a ransomware attack, Raoul acknowledged in a statement Thursday.
A ransomware gang known as DoppelPaymer is believed to be behind the attack, in which some data from the attorney general’s office was posted online.
Ransomware is malicious software that infects a computer system. Those behind ransomware then demand money to allow the system to work properly again.
Office management indicated a comprehensive internal cybersecurity risk assessment was not performed due to competing priorities within the Information Technology (IT) Bureau. In addition, the coronavirus pandemic further delayed IT initiatives since March 2020.
The lack of adequate cybersecurity programs and practices could result in unidentified risk and vulnerabilities which ultimately leads to the Office’s confidential and personal information being susceptible to cyber-attacks and unauthorized disclosure.
