[This post’s timestamp has been altered for Saturday visibility.]
* As expected, the governor is keeping the schools closed…
Folks I’ve said time and time again my decisions are hard ones, but they will follow the science and the science says, our students can’t go back to their normal routine. Therefore I am suspending in person learning in schools for the remainder of the 2019 2020 school year.
We know that there are many school districts with unique challenges, and we will work with them on any issues that may arise. I know that many have felt that this was inevitable. But trust me when I say this was not a decision that I made lightly.
The importance of our schools and our in-person school days is not just a question of tradition and sentimentality. As essential as those things are, the shutting of in-person classroom time also risks a drop in instructional time, an extended window in which students can potentially experience summer learning loss and an educational landscape in which some districts have more experience with remote learning than others. These challenges weighed heavily on me as we came to this decision, but my priority remains unchanged. How do we save the most lives during this very difficult time?
The answer to that question leaves us with only one path forward. Over the last month, Illinois schools have stepped up and faced the many challenges of COVID-19 with generosity and creativity, and a resolute focus on caring for students and parents and communities. And I’m confident that our schools will manage and expand the learning opportunities for all of our children, who will be working from home over the coming weeks.
Remember to pardon all transcription errors.
* Announces a new EO…
And to begin the work of preparing our classrooms for students eventual return, I will be signing an executive order to modify licensing requirements for future educators who are nearly finished with their studies, like our student teachers, to ensure that this situation does not impact school’s ability to hire the qualified teachers that they need when students come back.
* Federal money…
There is $569 million to support our K-12 schools from the federal CARES act in response to COVID-19, dollars that can help equip students with technology and internet access to enhance remote learning support teachers and developing their remote instruction skills and assist schools and continuing to provide meals to children and communities. Public school districts will receive a portion of this funding proportional to the number of low income students that they serve, and ISBE will direct the remaining funds towards supporting our districts that need those resources most.
* Grades…
My office and the Illinois State Board of Education is recommending that any grades given during this pandemic reflect the unprecedented circumstances in which students are attempting to continue their studies. That is, grades should deliver feedback, and not be used as a tool for compliance. COVID-19 is forcing far too many of our students to deal firsthand with concepts that even adults find nerve wracking. Let’s recognize that and be supportive of all of our students.
* To teachers…
I want to offer a few thoughts to some of the people impacted by this decision. To the teachers who feel like they didn’t get to say a proper goodbye to their students. My heart is with you. Know that your efforts reach your classrooms through new creative ways, and that that means the world to your students and to me. To the special education instructors who might be facing particular challenges and making meaningful remote connections with their kids. I know you’re working to build a unique response to a unique situation, and I’m so grateful for that. We must continue to reach all of our students in any way that we can to the administrators who have dedicated themselves to transforming their districts overnight and doing everything that it takes to implement look remote learning, whatever it looks like in your community. Thank you, every minute of instructional time that you can keep running will make a real difference for our children to the parents who find themselves experiencing a world of emotions because, because of this pandemic, along with some extra stress with your kids at home all day. I promise you, you will get through this.
* To students…
To our high school seniors who are leaving this phase of their teen years behind in a way that they never expected. I know you’re feeling sad about missing the rituals of senior prom, and senior pranks, senior nights and of course graduation. Hearing from me as your governor, there’s room for you to feel all those things, big and small, you will get through this too. You will talk about this for the rest of your lives. And you will go on to do amazing things. I am very, very proud of you.
And to children of all ages. This is a very strange moment that you’re living in. Your parents and I didn’t experience something like this when we were kids. But I can tell you for sure that the hard things we did live through, we learned from. And you’re going to learn from this.
You’re going to see what it looks like when the world comes together. When it looks what it looks like to put your faith in science and research. And the teams of people here in Illinois and beyond, we’re working on treatments and vaccines to save lives. We will get to the other side of this and that other side will be a place that appreciates the best of the before, but with a greater sense of compassion and connection.
And the best part is that you are going to be the ones guiding us forward. All of you, with your creativity, your passion and your care for others are going to shape our future. Let me be the first to say, I can’t wait to see all that you will accomplish.
* Illinois Superintendent of Education Carmen Ayala…
Since the suspension of in person instruction, when it began on March 17, Illinois schools statewide have risen to the challenge of holistically serving students in new and in different ways. Decatur public schools for example, has partnered with local radio stations to provide stories and lessons on the air. Vienna High Schools has parked school buses equipped with Wi Fi hotspots in strategic locations throughout Johnson County to boost internet connectivity for students at home. And the Northwest suburban special education organization has pre-recorded videos using American Sign Language to read and sign stories to students with disabilities.
This pandemic has altered the fabric of how we teach how we learn and how we connect, but it has not shaken the core of what our schools do. And that is to take care of Illinois children and prepare them for what is next. Our schools focus on social and emotional skills like resiliency empathy and adaptability. So when the unpredictable events in life knock us down, we have the strength and the mindset to get back up.
* More from the superintendent…
Many families also do not have sufficient access to computers or internet at home. And we’re going to tackle this digital divide head on. As part of a strategic effort that will extend beyond the end of this pandemic, we will use the Illinois State Board of Education, federal CARES act dollars to increase access to technology and devices in our least resourced districts, and we encourage school districts to use their CARES act funding allocations for this purpose as well. Closing the digital divide will be pivotal in fulfilling the agency’s new post pandemic strategic plan. […]
Will students returned to school totally caught up? We’re not expecting them to. … We’ll be releasing transition guidance to help schools address learning loss and students social emotional needs when they return to the classrooms, whenever that is safe to do so.
* On to questions for the governor. Are you tracking the cases of positive cases of coronavirus among health workers healthcare workers? Do you know those numbers here in Illinois and also how many health care workers in Illinois have died?…
Dr. Ezeki: We have all of those numbers in our database, our databases are populated with information from our local county health departments as they manage the individual cases. So we know that there have been numbers of individuals who are health care workers, different, different types of health care workers, and we can get to those numbers. Specifically, so that you can keep those I haven’t reported out specifically on those but I can get those for you.
* Why haven’t you reported that yet?…
Dr. Ezeki: I actually haven’t broken it out like that so it’s not it’s something that my team can assemble we have, you know, occupational status for many of the, of the cases that are in the database, but we haven’t broken it out like that so we can get that for you.
* How about McCormick Place? We understand that now there have been patients admitted. Are they only coronavirus patients how sick are they and tell us a little more about that?…
Pritzker: There are five patients there, so far, and they are all people who have a low acuity COVID 19.
* Are some hospitals full?…
Dr. Ezeki: We divide our hospitals, our 211 hospitals into 10 to 11 regions … There’s no region that has no beds, but individual hospitals can get to capacity and so that would have resulted in some of the transfers that we have seen.
* Was there any talk about extending the school year into the summer or adjusting next year’s school year and also what does this do to the stay at home order to the state?…
I’ll make decisions about the stay at home order, as I do, you know, everything else on a day by day basis following it and I’ll let you know as soon as I know.
I did not consider what would happen mid summer. There are summer school programs and other things that may take place but at the moment we felt like this was the right answer.
* Can you expand on the grading the non grading and really what does compliance mean?…
We’re not intending to say non grading or grading, it’s just a, we want students to be treated with enough understanding that teachers are not using it as a compliance tool to give them a bad grade because they don’t have an internet connection or the internet connection is spotty or these are sometimes difficult circumstances people are not used to kids are not used to being home and doing schooling. And so there needs to be more understanding that’s really the point of the comments.
* Governor DeSantis in Florida is letting parents choose whether or not to redo the school year. Is that a possibility here?…
I haven’t looked at what Governor DeSantis is doing. I guess the basis of your question, certainly something we could look at. I mean it’s not something that we’ve contemplated right now, given the amount of time that’s left in the school year and the fact that some school districts many school districts do have a pretty good elearning program in place so they can get much of the instruction done, but I recognize that there are kids who may not get as much. And therefore, you know, something like that might work but I’ll go look at what Governor desantis has done.
* Today was the biggest one day jumping cases, do you expect this to keep happening and if so, and are you showing the curve is flattening if the, you know, numbers keep increasing and do you expect those numbers to keep increasing?…
Pritzker: You saw that this was our second highest day for testing. We had I think 7300 tests that were that came back today. And that leads to of course, a higher nominal amount of people who tested positive. There are lots of people out there, unfortunately, who don’t get tested who are COVID positive. And so the more we test the more we’re gonna see test positive. So the thing I would track and then that’s a, we look at it. But the bigger, more important number is really the number of hospitalizations and ICU beds, for several reasons but the most important of which is, if people are sick enough to go to the hospital. That’s a definite signal, you know that someone is, you know, COVID-19 positive likely you know if they have a respiratory issue. And then of course ICU beds are, you know, a worsening of that condition document.
Dr. Ezike: So, one of the byproducts of being able to flatten the curve is that you will delay the peak, and maybe it’s not a peak where you go straight up and down, but maybe if I can use a term plateau, where you’re kind of flattened for a while. So again we’re looking at all these numbers to figure out exactly where we are in our curve, and it is really a day by day thing and then you look at week trends. So, we’re not exactly surprised that we would see more cases. There is the extra factor of how many tests were done versus on one day versus another so again we’re following all that we are continuing to increase our amount of testing. So, if the denominator, if you will, of total people being tested is increased, we will see higher numbers so we’ll take that into account but definitely all the numbers are being evaluated every single day, and we are making the best educated guesses out of the trends that we see from the data.
I don’t think we’ve peaked.
* With the highest to date number of known cases being reported in a single day and the high number of deaths in a single day reported yesterday. What do you attribute that to and what evidence shows that the state is in fact bending the curve or no?…
Well, first thing that people should take note of is that we talked about this the other day, the doubling times. How long does it take to double the number of cases in a state, how long does it take to double the number of fatalities in a state. We have seen that the length of time it takes to double increase significantly, even more than I reported the other day it’s actually increasing that, doubling time. And that’s a very good thing, that’s a good thing.
We have not peaked, I think you just heard Dr Ezike say, and I will repeat it.
* Are the scientists you consult saying anything about actions you can take to cause a “downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14 day period” to quote the new White House guidance?…
There isn’t some specific action that you can do that leads to a downward trajectory. What you can do is keep doing the things you’re doing that are slowing the center of the curve.
And there are a few other things you can do. You know I talked the other day about one of the state reps who suggested that people who work in grocery stores and other stores should be required to wear masks. I have encouraged everybody to wear a mask when they’re out in public. And you know if we perhaps if we enforced that more, or if people just enforced it by talking to people as they see them on the street.
I think that’s another way that we could do it, but there isn’t something specific. I wish I could tell you, we don’t live in a dictatorial society, we don’t live in an authoritarian world. This is a free country and we want to make sure that we are observing people’s civil liberties while keeping them safe and that’s the balance that we’re trying to strike here.
* Is Randolph county on the state’s radar given that you have two large facilities there … Can you describe what efforts you may have in place there, given that they are somewhat of a hotspot in Southern Illinois?…
So just so you know we’re watching every county in Illinois. You hear us reporting on cases in counties, and the numbers of counties in part and you can read about it at IDPH, in part, we make sure you know about the number of counties because we want people to know what’s going on across the state and this isn’t just a Cook County or Chicago issue this really is happening everywhere. That’s number one.
And number two, with regard to congregate facilities we’ve talked about this quite a lot like the congregate facilities of every type are being surveilled by us all the time. We are talking to the leaders and managers of those facilities, we are delivering PPE or making sure that there are guidelines for them to follow guidance given by IDPH, to make sure that we’re caring for those people as best we can. Those are very difficult circumstances, just to be clear, it’s happening all over the country. When you put for example, seniors together in a congregate facility, they can’t easily be moved around. And you know in a nursing home just as one example. …
Same thing for a correctional institution. You’ve seen that we brought the National Guard in to Stateville. We’re looking at other places where we might want to deploy them and making sure that we’re bringing even more medical facilities or making more medical facilities available to the staff, and to the inmates themselves.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,842 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 62 additional deaths.
Boone County: 1 female 60s
Cook County: 2 females 40s, 1 male 40s, 2 males 50s, 2 females 60s, 5 males 60s, 4 females 70s, 4 males 70s, 5 females 80s, 5 males 80s, 3 females 90s, 4 males 90s
DuPage County: 1 male 60s, 2 males 70s, 1 female 80s, 3 males 80s, 2 females 90s
Kane County: 1 male 60s, 1 male 90s, 1 male 100+
Lake County: 1 male 90s
Macon County: 1 female 80s, 1 female 90s
Madison County: 1 female 60s, 1 male 60s
Monroe County: 1 female 80s
Randolph County: 1 male 80s
St. Clair County 1 unknown 60s, 1 female 70s, 1 male 80s
Will County: 2 males 80s
Henderson and Wayne counties are now reporting cases. Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 27,575 cases, including 1,134 deaths, in 92 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years.
Hospitals in New York City are running out of dialysis fluids as thousands of coronavirus patients develop kidney failure, an unexpected development that could presage the next critical supply shortage nationwide.
Approximately 20 percent of coronavirus patients in intensive care around the city need the kidney treatment, often for weeks, a development that many providers did not see coming. FEMA held a call Monday with FDA and CMS to discuss the possibility of issuing emergency use authorizations to import more dialysis fluids, according to a document obtained by POLITICO.
But shortages are already testing hospitals in New York, where more than 202,000 people have become infected and almost 11,000 have died. The same day that federal regulators met, major New York hospital systems convened to discuss the emerging dialysis crisis. Some are struggling with dire shortfalls of dialysis fluids and trained nursing staff, and have reached out directly to manufacturers for help, according to two people on the call.
* I asked the Illinois Kidney Care Alliance’s spokesperson if that was happening in Illinois…
Some of our coalition members have been involved in the response to the increased need for renal replacement therapy, which has put pressure on many hospitals in New York and elsewhere.
In New York and New Jersey, patient numbers requiring renal therapy are five or more times normal volumes. We have not yet seen this phenomenon in Illinois, but that doesn’t mean we won’t. Illinois already has more than 30,000 patients with serious kidney disease, and a sharp increase in demand for equipment, supplies, solutions and nursing support could bring unprecedented challenges. But our coalition members stand ready to bring our experiences and lessons learned in New York to assist in the crisis response in Illinois.
As hydroxychloroquine has been touted as a possible treatment for COVID-19, patients with autoimmune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis have struggled to fill the prescriptions they rely on to keep their condition manageable. The Food and Drug Administration reported March 31 there is a shortage of the drug.
A French study of 36 COVID-19 patients last month found those given HCQ and an antibiotic saw a reduction in their viral load — results President Donald Trump has highlighted. Other studies have found mixed results for HCQ’s ability to treat or prevent COVID-19, and a larger French study this week found the drug didn’t have a significant effect on the disease.
Dr. Rosalind Ramsey-Goldman, a professor of rheumatology at Northwestern, says hydroxychloroquine is an essential medicine for lupus patients.
Sold under the brand name Plaquenil, HCQ helps treat symptoms such as fatigue and joint pain, lessen flares and prevent organ damage. And HCQ has fewer side effects than other drugs lupus patients take, Ramsey-Goldman said.
Three Smithfield Food employees have tested positive for COVID-19, prompting extra precautions at the meat-processing plant, according to the Warren County Health Department.
The department said Friday it is conducting “extensive contact tracing” regarding the employees, one of whom lives in Warren County while the other two live in Rock Island County. The department did not describe their health status. […]
A Smithfield Foods plant in South Dakota has been shut down since last week. Thursday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff toured the Sioux Falls plant, three weeks after the first COVID-19 case involving a Smithfield employee was determined on March 24. The CDC team is assessing conditions and developing an action plan needed to safely reopen the hog harvesting facility.
McCormick Place field hospital now accepting COVID-19 patients
Antiviral drug being tested at UChicago Medicine shows promise against COVID-19
COVID-19 SBA loan funds exhausted: At Devon Bank, ‘applications with no place to go’
Chicago COVID-19 survivors share their stories
‘I feel like I lost the battle for my husband,’ widow of dead Cook County Jail detainee says
Chicago police announced Thursday 49 more confirmed cases of COVID-19, raising the total number of cases in the department to 288. Of the cases, 276 are officers and 12 are civilian employees, Chicago police said.
A four-year legal battle that pitted a suburban teacher against her employer ended Thursday when the Illinois Supreme Court sided with the school district, ruling the teacher was not entitled to all of her paid sick leave because she gave birth just before summer break and had ample time to recover before her job resumed.
The ruling, which sets a precedent for most of the state’s public school teachers, held that Wood Dale District 7 doesn’t have to let teachers carry over benefits to the new school year for births that occurred during or right before summer break. Nothing precludes teachers, however, from taking unpaid time off through the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Anne Burke wrote that a measure in the Illinois School Code granting 30 days of paid sick leave to male and female teachers for “birth, adoption, or placement for adoption” must be used immediately.
A statute dating back to the early 1800s cannot be applied to daily fantasy sports betting, Illinois’ highest court ruled Thursday. Fantasy sports, the court ruled, are games dominated by skill, not by chance.
In April 2016, Colin Dew-Becker and Andrew Wu competed in a fantasy NBA contest through the website FanDuel. They each paid $109 — a $100 wager and $9 fee to the company. Wu’s team scored almost double the points Dew-Becker’s team did, making him the winner.
Dew-Becker filed a lawsuit three days later to recover his bet. Under a centuries-old Illinois law called the Loss Recovery Act — passed in 1819, one year after Illinois became a state and 40 years before the Civil War — those on the losing end of an illegal wager have a legal avenue to get their money back.
In order for that to be a possibility, however, that money had to be lost while gambling. The state Supreme Court, after consulting recently-published peer-reviewed studies, ruled that while nothing in the act’s language omits internet contests from its purview, daily fantasy sports bets do not fit the definition of gambling as dictated by law.
A team at Southern Illinois University Carbondale this week delivered its first round of a key substance needed for COVID-19 tests to health authorities in Springfield. SIU was the first university in the state to do so.
Andrew Wood, director of the School of Biological Sciences, on Tuesday hand-delivered the first 10,000 vials of Viral Transport Medium formulated at SIU to the Illinois Department of Public Health. SIU researchers, along with several other state universities, are working on making up the shortfall of the substance.
Gary Kinsel, vice chancellor for research at SIU, said he is proud of how well faculty are performing in meeting the ongoing challenges presented by the health emergency.
“It’s a source of great pride that our faculty have stepped up to provide such an important contribution to the state of Illinois during this pandemic,” Kinsel said. “I know that their efforts expand the state testing capacity and ultimately save lives.”
Viral Transport Medium (VTM) is a pH-buffered fluid with a specific formulation of salts, protein and other chemicals that maintains the genetic information of a virus until it can be tested. Faculty have been working around the clock organizing the effort to make the substance, which is in short supply because of the ongoing health emergency and large need for testing.
The batch was manufactured by a team of microbiologists and several students last week at SIU.
Scott Hamilton-Brehm, professor of microbiology and a leader of the effort, said the SIU team intends to keep the pace of 10,000 vials per week
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is planning to close the state’s schools for in-person instruction through the end of the academic year because of the coronavirus, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
The governor and his team have worked through the details of the extended closures this week and will announce the decision Friday afternoon, sources said.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is fully on board with the move but isn’t expected to attend the news conference with the governor because of scheduling conflicts, sources said. Lightfoot on Thursday hinted strongly that the decision was coming but said it was up to Pritzker and she would like to be part of that discussion.
Pritzker’s original stay-at-home order was to expire April 7. He already has extended it once — until April 30 — and has hinted for days about a second extension deep into May.
* The Question: Agree or disagree? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please…
Governor Pritzker provided the first estimates of how hard the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will hit Illinois. According to the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget (GOMB), General Fund revenue in the current fiscal year will be at least $2.7 billion less than initial the initial projection of $40.2 billion. That is cause for significant concern, because — as shown in Figure 1, the revenue shortfall amounts to fully 10 percent of what Illinois budgeted to spend on General Fund services this year — where 96 cents of every dollar of such spending goes to the core areas of: education (inclusive of early childhood, k-12, and higher ed); heath care; human services; and public safety.
Figure 1: FY 2020 Enacted General Fund Appropriations ($ Millions)
As shown in Figure 1, of the $40.8 billion in total General Fund spending budgeted for FY 2020, $13.6 billion is for “Hard Costs” or mandatory spending obligations over which decision makers have no discretion, because they are required to be paid either by law or contract. Once those Hard Costs are paid — as they have to be — that leaves only $27.01 billion appropriated for services.
Given that there are only two and one-half months left in FY 2020, it would be incredibly difficult to implement a 10 percent cut to core services — especially when considering the increased demand for health and human services caused by the pandemic. [Emphasis added.]
And because only two and a half months remain in the fiscal year, a 10 percent cut to core services for the remainder of FY20 would be the equivalent to a 50 percent or so slash in annual expenditures. Impossible.
(T)he Pritzker Administration has decided to cover over half of the $2.7 billion revenue shortfall now projected for FY 2020 by incurring $1.2 billion in new short-term borrowing plus deferring $400 million in investment fund repayments from FY 2020 into FY 2021, while transferring $323 million via interfund borrowing.
The bad news is the pandemic’s impact on the economy and hence state revenues is not limited to FY 2020. Governor Pritzker also announced that revenue projections for FY 2021 have been revised downward by $4.6 billion, which, when coupled with repayment of the $1.2 billion in new short-term borrowing that will be incurred this year, plus the deferral of $400 million in repayments that were due in FY 2020 into FY 2021, will drive the total revenue shortfall for FY 2021 up to around $6.2 billion.
And that hole will be $7.4 billion without passage of the graduated income tax, which, the CTBA points out “is almost 36 percent of the current year’s General Fund appropriations for the core services of education, health care, social services and public safety.”
As Americans continue to shelter in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a record 22 million people have filed for unemployment over the past four weeks, and many more have struggled to access benefits. But some of the very workers who process those claims have started to fear for their own health.
Multiple employees with the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) told The Daily Beast they were being forced to work in an unsafe office environment even though they could theoretically get their jobs done from home.
“A quarter of our office is not coming in because they don’t want to die,” one IDES employee told The Daily Beast. […]
“Nobody is wearing masks,” said another IDES worker. “There is no social distancing.”
After this story was published, a spokesperson for IDES told The Daily Beast the agency had been deemed essential. “Because of this, there are essential employees who are required to report to their physical work location, although we are working to provide as many essential employees as possible with the proper IT, privacy, and confidentiality resources to continue and complete their work from home.”
* I checked in with AFSCME Council 31 to see what the union knows. Here’s Anders Lindall…
AFSCME represents more than 900 employees in IDES. Responding to the historic surge in unemployment claims and getting jobless folks the benefits they need and deserve, union members in IDES are doing vital work to help their communities in the wake of the pandemic crisis. And they’re doing it under intense stress caused by the enormous volume of claims and the knowledge that applicants are desperate for income.
As with every employer, we have urged IDES to move as many employees as possible to work remotely. Right now 40 percent of our members in the agency are teleworking, with another 20 percent set to move to remote next week. We continue to push for that transition wherever possible, not only to maximize social distancing but to respond to concerns from members including high-risk health conditions and lack of child care.
For those employees still required to come to the worksite, at our urging every IDES office should be implementing staff rotations to reduce the number of people and their proximity in any location, providing adequate supplies of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes, reimbursing employees for masks and gloves and ensuring regular deep cleaning of every office.
We believe those practices are being followed in most instances and we’re continually following up with management in locations where members have raised ongoing concerns. Whether in IDES, throughout state government or in any other setting, no one should be put at unnecessary risk, their family exposed, or their community introduced to viral spread as a consequence of doing the essential public service work that must go on.
OK, but in my opinion, the state should be requiring its workers to wear masks in the office.
The national average for testing is 10,417 per million people. Illinois’ is 9,561 per million. Gov. Pritzker has said time and time again that the state needs to be testing at least 10,000 people a day, but the state has never really come close to that.
Gov. Pritzker announced a breakthrough with testing several days ago, only to walk it back, claiming that a Thermo Fisher testing machine did not work as advertised. Last week, he announced increased testing for African-Americans and other vulnerable populations, but those tests were not done because the local health centers haven’t been given the supplies and Lurie Children’s Hospital, which was supposed to test the swabs, hadn’t yet set up testing protocols.
Ford said the governor’s broken promise on providing testing isn’t just troubling, it’s personal. The Democratic state representative said he knows at least 15 African Americans who have died from COVID-19. They were healthy or had only minor health troubles, Ford said.
“But they weren’t going to die if it wasn’t for coronavirus. And one of the reasons they died is because they were not tested,” Ford continued. “I’m seeing long lines for drive-up testing in other areas and none here in Austin. This is an indication of how the black community at large — and not just over the coronavirus — are treated by government.” […]
“Life expectancy in Austin is 20 to 25 years less than it is nine miles to the east, downtown. Black people are already dying. Now, if you have an underlying condition and you get COVID-19, we don’t know if you have a life expectancy,” Ford said.
“How can the governor say we’re bending the curve when they’re not testing an entire segment of the population? It’s false narrative. [Pritzker] has got to step up and make sure that he’s taking care of people on the West Side and the black community at large.”
Though some reporting had suggested the machines and testing supplies had still not been delivered to health centers six days after the governor initially made that announcement, Ezike on Thursday said if any testing site didn’t have supplies “it must be en route or on its way or coming today.”
“We definitely are trying to make that available immediately so that we can get the testing up,” Ezike said.
For everyone’s sake, I hope that turns out to be true. Black people get the okeydoke far too much as it is. If the governor is going to make promises like this, he needs to make sure he keeps them.
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Chicago and Cook County account for 70% of the state’s 25,733 infections. But some people — mostly Republicans — complain that [Pritzker has] neglected the rest of Illinois, even as it shares in the economic pain and social disruption from measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Thursday marked Pritzker’s 40th daily televised update, and the 29th in a row from his office in downtown Chicago.
“Mostly”? Not a single member of the super-majority party is quoted with a complaint.
Pritzker’s briefings are available statewide and while it’s not his preference, the governor is following his own recommendation by “staying home as much as possible to limit exposure,” spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said.
That touches another downstate nerve that has stung for decades: Chicago-based governors who spend too little time in the capital and its Governor’s Mansion. He could be just as effective in Springfield, according to GOP Rep. Terri Bryant of Murphysboro.
“I don’t want him to do a tour around the entire state with an entourage, but I’d like to see him conducting the business of the state at the seat of government,” Bryant said. “It would give everyone in the state access to him instead of just Chicago.”
That would mean moving his staff and his family and his agency directors to Springfield.
And, to be clear, I have said for decades that governors should live wherever they want as long as they’re in town for session.
Elections have consequences.
…Adding… Sen. Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) was on Sam Madonia’s show today. Madonia said he’s heard “there hasn’t been a lot of communication between the governor’s office and maybe some people on the Republican side of the aisle. How do you react to that?”…
I respect all the individuals, especially downstate Republicans, who have expressed that. I get along with almost all of them. I just don’t see it, though. I mean, I’m staring right now, I’m sitting in my house in front of my computer, I’m staring at email after email. [One] email has 22 attachments from the governor’s office in my inbox, either last night or this morning with everything that was announced or executed by a state agency yesterday, down to minute details. So I think the governor’s office is inundating legislators with information. So, I just don’t see that Sam and I don’t understand. I just, for the life of me don’t understand that criticism.
…Adding… Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville) on Facebook…
Yesterday, a spokesperson for Governor Pritzker said he’s not holding any of his daily press conferences from Springfield because he’s following his own advice and staying home as much as possible. Today, the Governor released a self-promoting ad he filmed with penguins at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and he’s using taxpayer dollars to promote it. We all love penguins and we all need a little levity, but come on - you can’t say you don’t have time to come downstate.
Travel time between the James R. Thompson Center and Shedd Aquarium: 11 minutes.
Travel time between the James R. Thompson Center and Morrisonville, IL: 3 hours, 29 minutes.
Nearly 300 Illinois nursing home patients and staff have died from COVID-19, but exactly where still remains largely cloaked in secrecy.
Unlike some states, Illinois hasn’t named specific facilities where the virus has been detected. That’s been true even in cases of significant clusters of deaths.
Several other states do publish those lists.
* Nursing homes are not required to report cases and deaths to family members or employees. But they do have to report the data to the state. IDPH, however, is only releasing totals to the public…
As of Thursday, in Illinois, the Pritzker administration reported 587 patients and nursing home staffers who tested positive, at a total of 305 nursing homes. At least facilities have had at least one patient or staffer die.
That’s almost 42 percent of all nursing homes in Illinois with positive cases and 17 percent with reported deaths.
Most counties aren’t releasing that information, either.
* A Tribune reporter asked IDPH Director Ngozi Ezike about this yesterday. Her reply…
We’re working on getting information out regarding the nursing homes. I think there might be some delays in keeping up with that but working on that in terms of our approach to dealing with really one of our most vulnerable populations.
A department spokesman later told the Tribune the agency was “working on compiling a listing of the locations,” which it hoped to provide “as soon as possible.”
Look, IDPH is stretched to the max. A year of partial rebuilding undoubtedly wasn’t enough to fill in the hollowed-out organization. But this isn’t a matter of reaching out to nursing homes to gather data. The information is already supposedly being reported to the state. Families, residents and workers need to know what the heck going on.
Though Illinois hospitals are, in many ways, busier than ever as they care for patients with the new coronavirus, they’re also taking a financial beating that’s affecting their workers and raising questions about how the institutions will recover once the worst of the pandemic has passed.
The Illinois Health and Hospital Association estimates that hospitals statewide could now be losing about $1.4 billion a month. That’s the money hospitals are missing out on because of canceled elective surgeries and fewer visits by other patients, many of whom may be avoiding medical care for fear of catching the virus. […]
In Illinois, hospitals are trying a number of tactics to stanch the bleeding, including reaching into their reserves, halting improvement projects and furloughing workers — sometimes with pay and sometimes without. Hospitals are sidelining workers because, without elective surgeries and with declines in outpatient care, there may not be enough work for them, at the moment. They also want as few extra people in hospitals as possible, to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. […]
Illinois hospitals also continue to contend with the same financial challenges they faced before the coronavirus. Before the pandemic, about 40% of the state’s hospitals were operating in the red or close to it, according to the Illinois Health and Hospital Association.
Friday, Apr 17, 2020 - Posted by Advertising Department
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Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker had some words of advice for Wellington when he visited the famous penguin at the Shedd Aquarium on Sunday.
“All right now, 6 feet apart, everyone,” Pritzker tells a group of penguins in a new video for his social media campaign, #AllInIllinois.
“Wellington, come on back,” Pritzker says, as the Shedd’s oldest — and perhaps most popular — penguin listened and rejoined a group of penguins walking in order — 6 feet apart.
The 60-second video — which also features the governor preaching to sea otters and garden eels — is the latest in Pritzker’s attempt to get residents to stay home and follow health guidelines, like social distancing and washing hands, as the battle continues in the deadly coronavirus outbreak. The latest pitch is intended for the state’s families and children.
[The timestamp has been altered to allow for Friday visibility.]
* Gov. Pritzker started his press conference with the number of deaths, moved to his earlier announcement of a regional compact with other governors and then talked about PPE supplies. And then he talked about tests…
Last week I walked you through how our world class researchers and scientists were collaborating with Thermo Fisher to identify and address the efficiency and reliability within the company’s machines, a critical component of our testing expansion plan. I’m pleased to say that Thermo Fisher was not only extremely helpful in working with us to improve these testing procedures, but also committed to prioritizing Illinois as its customer.
Those five machines that we had oncerns about are now up and running with reliable results, So reliable that as we ramp up over the next week, we’re estimating additional capacity of thousands more tests per day at our state labs, alone.
The state has been lagging other states and the national average with its testing capacity.
Remember to pardon all transcription errors.
* More good news…
You’ve heard me talk about the fact that machines and labs are only one part of ramping up testing in our state. We’ve also needed to find adequate supplies of items necessary to take specimens. Over the last month, obtaining the raw materials for specimens, notably viral transport medium called VTM and swabs has been difficult. However, I’m incredibly proud that my team has now managed to virtually eliminate our supply chain problems for VTM and swabs.
Our university partners of Illinois Tech Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and the University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, as well as outside vendors have committed collectively to providing us with enough VTM and swabs, that we can not only stock our own state labs, but support additional labs throughout the state.
This means even more specimens being taken for testing. And I want to invite labs who need our VTM and swabs, because many out there do, they should come and request it through their local emergency management agencies, they’ll be able to obtain it and provide it to you.
* Testing sites…
The next and final piece of this is the need to increase the number of locations available, so that people can give the specimens that then get tested. With our increased capacity of machines and labs and the new supply of raw materials, we now can take more specimens to test. It’s a great place to be at having the ability to expand testing sites.
Now that we can run more tests, I’m pleased to say that the guests here who are with me today, our partners in our statewide efforts to broadly increase participation in testing to reflect our newfound capacities, especially in African American communities, and other communities that face significant structural challenges in accessing health care, we’re utilizing our incredible statewide network of federally qualified health centers to launch new testing locations and communities across Illinois.
These new sites will feed specimens to our network of expanded laboratory capacity in coordination with the Illinois Primary Health Care Association. We asked which of the over 300 centers would be interested in helping us expand testing an overwhelming number of them were eager to help.
We now have sites coming online across Chicago, the collar counties Peoria, and in Southern Illinois with many more centers expressing interest and working to get their operations up and running. An up to date list of these sites will be onlin at coronavirus.illinois.gov.
And I want to remind everyone that if you think you might need a COVID-19 test, and your symptoms are somewhat mild, please call before showing up. And while each independent provider can and will offer tests with their own unique criteria, the state of Illinois has expanded those eligible to get a test to include anyone who has COVID like symptoms, even if you have not been given a doctor’s order. This will apply to our state run drive through testing centers, and it is guidance that we will now be offering to providers, all across the state of Illinois.
Two days ago we opened our third state drive thru site with excellent turnout. The new site in Markham in Chicago South suburbs, took over 600 specimens in its first day of operations. Now, I want to put that in perspective that’s about four times what the federally run sites were doing previously. With this new site, our drive throughs now have the ability to run up to 1800 tests per day. These sites have produced, terrific results for us and in the coming days I’ll be announcing two additional drive thru testing sites as we continue bringing that success to new regions and new areas of Illinois.
Folks, this progress on testing isn’t all the progress that we need to begin on our path back to normal. But this is truly an important step to help us get there. Until that day comes, please take comfort in the fact that you’re helping to make a difference, all of you, your individual efforts to stay home, wash your hands. Keep your distance and wear masks are what is flattening our collective curve. The day we can begin our path back to normal will come sooner because of your actions right now. So I ask you to continue to tap into your courage, your sense of community, your generosity and stay the course. We will get through this together, all of us together. Thank you very much.
* One of the next steps is to deploy antibody tests. Dr. Ezike talked about that…
We are working hard to evaluate the tests for immunity that are coming online so that the very best of these tests will be offered here in our state. We are working with healthcare systems, universities as well as ramping up our capacity at IDPH to run the virologic tests.
* More from Dr. Ezike…
You have heard me say it before. This is a marathon. We have to keep pace. Can’t get ahead of ourselves. You can see that we still have many new cases and unfortunately many lives that continue to be lost, but running together we will still beat this COVID-19. We are on the right track. We are not over this, but please continue to be all in Illinois.
* Dr. Ezike also explained why testing is so important…
New research suggests that people with Coronavirus may be most contagious the day they start symptoms, or even a day or two before. … So that means they identified individuals who were infected by someone before they actually had symptoms. This is why widespread testing is so important. We need to know who may be infected as soon as we can before they come into contact with many other people, especially the most vulnerable.
And that’s going to mean doing a whole lot more tests than we are now.
* On to questions for the governor. The first question right out of the box is if he is planning to extend the stay at home order. He gave the same answer that he’s given every single day. Again, he’s not going to wait for a reporter’s question to make this announcement.
He did, however, say he would be saying more over the next week.
* The partnership that you have with the other governors in the Midwest. I believe the governor of Wisconsin extended his stay at home order. Do you follow suit? Is that, do you take that into consideration when you’re making up your own orders? I know you said that every governor is going to have, you know, there, you’re going to do your own thing with your own state should do you take that into consideration?…
Well I talked to a number of governors and these are the governors that are you know we’re closest with. And so I certainly look at what they’re doing and I listened to them. They listen to me they asked me questions along the way. And each of us have taken ideas from one another.
I think what we’re trying to do with the collaborative effort together is to make sure that we’re using similar criteria. It matters if you’re bordering states if your region has sort of similar criteria. And I’ve talked a lot about these criteria over time and and that you know, some of them have as well, testing, tracing, treating. Those are all important things having widespread availability of PPE. Those are all things that we share in common. And of course, protecting workers and customers. When you ultimately try to loosen things up and make sure that people can do commerce and that we have an economy that starts to work again in the way that we all want it to. You want to make sure that you’re keeping people safe and so that’s the workers and the customers of course the business owners too. You know, we try to take all that into consideration, but we share a lot of common values and you saw it’s a bipartisan group. You know we share I think in common that those those sets of values and criteria. And that’s really why we created that collaborative so that we can share those best ideas
A question was asked if he had a call with President Trump today. He said he did not.
* Illinois spent millions on N95 mass from China. IDPH is out with a new health alert that says those masks may not meet performance standards, and some could be counterfeit. Governor, in a rush to secure PPE did Illinois get scammed? [TV reporters love asking dramatic questions]…
No, I think what the guidance is is that sometimes you can acquire PPE from people right, not from the state, but anywhere that might say N95 mask on it. But you’ve got to know that that’s a real N95 mask. All the PPE. This is true for all of the health departments and everybody that acquires PPE now. You really got to make sure that what arrives is what you paid for, what you thought you were getting. And so we’re doing our best you know and things come in and shipments of a million. You can’t go through one mask at a time. And so you try to take samples from the shipments that come in and make sure that you got what you were paying for.
He then received several similar questions with predictable results.
* Pritzker claimed the unemployment insurance application process was improving…
We are now I think operating on a much more, a higher level, you know doing what amounts to about 10 times, eight to 10 times the number of claims being processed now that were being processed a year ago at the same time
We’ll see. I’m still seeing lots of tweets from frustrated people.
* The governor of Wisconsin has extended their stay at home a month now through May 22 or May 26. The governor of Ohio was saying that they may start to reopen some businesses by May 1. So you guys are all working in collaboration, does that really work if various states are doing their own thing and why are we waiting to extend this stay at home or if that’s what you anticipate doing?…
Well what I would say is that, April 30 is the deadline that we set ,we certainly will be making decisions about it, we look at it every day. Again, and to the several other states are looking at opening certain kinds of businesses on certain dates. Obviously we have different economies across these states, we share a lot in common. However, and so a lot of the ideas that we each have about our state are applicable to one another as to the date that somebody picks. Look, part of it is dependent as I said upon the increase in testing does a state feel comfortable based upon their population that they’re doing enough testing, because you can’t just look at the base number of tests that a state is doing it’s based upon population right. How many out of a million people are getting tested each day. We’re not where we want to be in the state. The other part of it is that as I’ve said we need to do much more tracking and tracing I think that’s very, very important. And we’re spinning up a tracking and tracing capability this contact tracing. But again, what’s what’s important about this collaborative i think is that we share our economy share a lot in common in the Midwest you know traditionally referred to often as the rust belt. But, so the result is the, the industries are similar. The thinking is a little bit similar. And so, and we’ve all developed a pretty good relationship with one another. And that makes it a very worthwhile collaborative to have because collectively I think we’re making good decisions, importantly, we are saying things that are different than the things that are coming out of the CDC in the White House
* Do you anticipate any businesses in Illinois reopening on May 1?…
Again, I’m looking at the executive orders. Remember in the executive order, there is a list of essential businesses and this is a base starting. We started out with the base of the Homeland Security list, the Department of Homeland Security in Washington of what’s an essential business and then we expanded upon that to include things that we thought were either unique to Illinois or where we might have disagreed with the Department of Homeland Security and wanted more open.
And so we’re constantly looking at and adjusting we indeed have adjusted, since the very beginning right as people have come to us and said, well here’s how we would operate as an industry. If we had the opportunity to open then based upon that you know we’ve been able to do that so we’re constantly looking at it we will, you know, if we extended the stay at home and kept the essential business list in place, we would continue to evaluate where we could make adjustments,
* Iowa is not on the list. Why is it not in the list and don’t you need Iowa if you’re going to make this work with all bordering states?…
We would love to have as many states as want to join as a part of it Iowa chose not to be part of this. I know they have, they don’t have a stay at home rule yet in place. They’ve made a lot of different decisions than we have. And yes, I would like it if every state, frankly fought. We were as you know one of the very first states, the second state in the United States put a stay in order in. I think ours has been copied by a number of others which is terrific, imitation is the greatest form of flattery. And so I would like it if everybody adopted similar rules because we’re bending the curve, not everywhere is bending the curve. So, yeah, there’s nothing I can do with the federal government chose, the White House chose not to take the lead here. And so the states have had to make decisions on our own
* There is some concern around the nation that states are in short supply of medications needed for patients on ventilators is Illinois seeing that shortage of medications and if not, what can we do to make sure that doesn’t happen? [Finally, an original question and of course it was from Sfondeles]…
Dr. Ezike: So as we increase the number of patients that are on ventilators,
there are medicines that we use for sedation and even paralytics to paralyze patients that are being used more than as usual. So, there are, if you go from hospital to hospital they are different drugs, they’re on a shortage list. So, the FDA is aware, IDPH, the state doesn’t have any role in procuring, the medicines, but we are aware that they’re, you know there are drugs that are being used more than they have been because of this COVID-19 pandemic. And so we’re keeping you know we’re keeping an eye but we don’t have a direct role in terms of securing those drugs.
* Have third shifts at state labs all been fully implemented?…
Dr. Ezike: Chicago is running two shifts every single day, Springfield is also running two shifts a day and in our Carbondale lab is running 24/seven.
Gov. Pritzker: Lab technicians are in short supply. And so to even get a second shift at three different labs across the state. And in some areas where it’s more difficult to hire lab technicians is really quite an amazing lift. Now think about having a third shift you know 24 seven so that we’ve done that at one lab. The doctor has been amazing. And now we’re going to have a third shift at two other labs soon enough.
* Why hasn’t Illinois released the names of nursing homes or patients or staff have tested positive as well as the number of cases and deaths as other states are, and what specifically is the state doing to address clusters mushrooming in nursing homes?…
We’re working on getting information out regarding the nursing homes. I think there might be some delays in keeping up with that but working on that in terms of our approach to dealing with really one of our most vulnerable populations.
Again we’ve talked many times from here about how difficult it is to control outbreaks in these congregate settings any of these settings where the people reside sleep live play eat all in the same place. It’s a little bit hard to distance and segregate and isolate when you’re in a confined space, but we have been talking we have some aggressive measures that we are employing where we want to identify people who are the carriers and of course right now in congregate settings with visitation being essentially nil, it’s it’s staff that probably are bringing in the virus. And so we have an aggressive campaign for our congregate settings to try to test all of the staff that work in these settings. We think that if we can identify staff members who are positive maybe they don’t know they’re positive, then we can get ahead of them potentially infecting the people that they’re there, that they’re charged to work with.
* A House Republican released the names and convictions of individuals who have commuted sentences for during this pandemic. How do you pick the individuals that have been released?…
Well let me point out that there are two methods that we’re following for thinking about release. One is the the director of the IDOC, the Department of Corrections has the ability on his own to determine that someone can be released and it’s the criteria that he’s using is non violent convictions. And people who are who have already served a substantial portion of their term or have a comorbidity or something that makes them, especially vulnerable and would not pose a risk to the community. That last part, not posing a risk to the community is incredibly important criteria that gets reviewed very closely.
The second way is that there are appeals to the governor to me for clemency, and those often are the more difficult cases, these are often people who may have committed a violent crime but it may have occurred many many years ago they may have served for example, decades of a term. I can recall a couple of situations where someone was convicted, at the age of 16 of being part of a situation where somebody died and they were essentially convicted of the same crime, even though they didn’t commit the crime themselves they may have been driving the getaway car they may have been standing nearby and part of the same group, but not been part of the violence itself. But they got convicted of a murder and were sentenced sometimes with some old laws in place. They had their normal sentence doubled because of the existing laws at the time. Someone might have gotten 80 years for something that someone doing the exact same thing a few years later, would have only gotten 40 years.
So those are examples anyway of the decisions are made in consultation for me. I often speak with the lieutenant governor and speak with my internal legal counsel, but ultimately it is those things are charged to me and to the Department of Corrections director.
* From Speaker Madigan’s chief of staff Jessica Basham…
Good afternoon, members and staff –
First, please note that the session days scheduled for next week (Tuesday, April 21 through Friday, April 24) are cancelled. The deadline for House Bills out of Committees, which had previously been rescheduled for April 24, will be extended to Thursday, April 30.
* The White House’s plan for “reopening” the economy has a lot of thoughtful and wise preconditions. For instance, this is something we’ve been talking about this week and it’s in an integral part of the initial “gating criteria”…
Downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period
OR
Downward trajectory of positive tests as a percent of total tests within a 14-day period (flat or increasing volume of tests)
That is hugely important. And we are not yet there by any means and nobody really knows when we will be, either nationally or in Illinois. To be on the safe side, the guidelines also include a mandate for a two-week downward trajectory of influenza-like illnesses and covid-like syndromic cases.
Ability to quickly set up safe and efficient screening and testing sites for symptomatic individuals and trace contacts of COVID+ results
Ability to test Syndromic/ILI-indicated persons for COVID and trace contacts of COVID+ results
Ensure sentinel surveillance sites are screening for asymptomatic cases and contacts for COVID+ results are traced (sites operate at locations that serve older individuals, lower-income Americans, racial minorities, and Native Americans)
So, even if test results are on the right downward track for two solid weeks, those things also have to happen before we can move forward.
Ability to quickly and independently supply sufficient Personal Protective Equipment and critical medical equipment to handle dramatic surge in need
Ability to surge ICU capacity
* These requirements that will allow states and regions to continue past the original gating criteria will likely depend on specific definitions…
Protect the health and safety of workers in critical industries
Protect the health and safety of those living and working in high-risk facilities (e.g., senior care facilities)
Protect employees and users of mass transit
Advise citizens regarding protocols for social distancing and face coverings
Monitor conditions and immediately take steps to limit and mitigate any rebounds or outbreaks by restarting a phase or returning to an earlier phase, depending on severity
State and local officials may need to tailor the application of these criteria to local circumstances (e.g., metropolitan areas that have suffered severe COVID outbreaks, rural and suburban areas where outbreaks have not occurred or have been mild). Additionally, where appropriate, Governors should work on a regional basis to satisfy these criteria and to progress through the phases outlined below.
* Only after all those above preconditions have been met can states and regions move to what the White House refers to as “phase one.” These would be the employer rules once all those preconditions have been met and phase one is reached…
Continue to ENCOURAGE TELEWORK, whenever possible and feasible with business operations.
If possible, RETURN TO WORK IN PHASES.
Close COMMON AREAS where personnel are likely to congregate and interact, or enforce strict social distancing protocols.
Minimize NON-ESSENTIAL TRAVEL and adhere to CDC guidelines regarding isolation following travel.
Strongly consider SPECIAL ACCOMMODATIONS for personnel who are members of a VULNERABLE POPULATION.
* Before states and regions are allowed to move to phase two, they have to meet this requrement…
STATES AND REGIONS WITH NO EVIDENCE OF A REBOUND AND THAT SATISFY THE GATING CRITERIA A SECOND TIME
See the top of this post for the gating criteria, including two weeks of a downward trajectory of reported cases. In other words, if positive test results start going back up or level off again, then phase two is out of the question.
Continue to ENCOURAGE TELEWORK, whenever possible and feasible with business operations.
Close COMMON AREAS where personnel are likely to congregate and interact, or enforce moderate social distancing protocols.
NON-ESSENTIAL TRAVEL can resume.
Strongly consider SPECIAL ACCOMMODATIONS for personnel who are members of a VULNERABLE POPULATION.
* Here’s what would be allowed in phase two, which, remember, could only happen if all gating requirements have been met a second time…
SCHOOLS AND ORGANIZED YOUTH ACTIVITIES (e.g., daycare, camp) can reopen.
VISITS TO SENIOR CARE FACILITIES AND HOSPITALS should be prohibited. Those who do interact with residents and patients must adhere to strict protocols regarding hygiene.
LARGE VENUES (e.g., sit-down dining, movie theaters, sporting venues, places of worship) can operate under moderate physical distancing protocols.
ELECTIVE SURGERIES can resume, as clinically appropriate, on an outpatient and in-patient basis at facilities that adhere to CMS guidelines.
GYMS can remain open if they adhere to strict physical distancing and sanitation protocols.
BARS may operate with diminished standing-room occupancy, where applicable and appropriate.
* Fitch reduced the state’s rating to one tiny click above junk bond status, and handed a non-investment grade status to the MPEA and ISFA…
Fitch Ratings has downgraded the state of Illinois’ Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘BBB-’ from ‘BBB’. Additionally, Fitch has downgraded the following ratings which are linked to or capped by the state’s IDR:
–GO bonds, downgraded to ‘BBB-’ from ‘BBB’;
–Build Illinois senior and junior obligation sales tax revenue bonds, which are linked to the state’s IDR based on state-dedicated tax analysis, downgraded to ‘BBB+’ from ‘A-’;
–Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) expansion project bonds, which are capped at appropriation risk of the state, downgraded to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-’;
–Illinois Sports Facilities Authority (ISFA) sports facilities (state tax-supported) bonds, which are also capped at appropriation risk of the state, downgraded to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-’.
The Rating Outlook is revised to Negative from Stable.
Fitch anticipates reviewing ratings within the next two weeks for Chicago motor fuel tax revenue bonds (BBB-/Stable) that may be affected by the downgrade and Outlook revision. […]
ANALYTICAL CONCLUSION
The downgrade of Illinois’ IDR and GO bond ratings to ‘BBB-’ from ‘BBB’ reflects Fitch’s anticipation of a fundamental weakening of the state’s financial resilience given its already tenuous position entering the current severe downturn. While Illinois should avoid any immediate cash flow pressures, the state’s lack of meaningful reserves and the limited nature of other fiscal-management tools at its disposal mean Illinois will be challenged to maintain its investment-grade IDR.
Illinois’ ‘BBB-’ IDR and GO bond ratings, well below the level of other states, have long reflected an ongoing pattern of weak operating performance and irresolute fiscal decision-making that has produced a credit position well below the level that the state’s broad economic base and substantial independent legal ability to control its budget would otherwise support. The ratings also reflect the state’s elevated long-term liability position, modest long-term economic and revenue growth profile and adequate expenditure flexibility.
The Outlook revision to Negative reflects the risk that the depth and duration of the downturn lead Illinois to implement nonstructural budget-management measures the state finds difficult to quickly unwind once an economic recovery finally begins to take hold.
MPEA had a great credit rating until the Rauner years, when a payment was missed…
The failed transfer prompted Standard & Poor’s to strip the agency’s $3 billion of debt of its AAA rating and Fitch Ratings to lower its AA-minus rating. Both dropped the ratings to BBB-plus, one level below the state’s A-minus rating, as they re-characterized the agency’s debt as subject to appropriation risk.
All three ratings agencies now have Illinois at the lowest possible rating and outlook before hitting junk bond territory.
* Meanwhile, the folks at Wirepoints are all but demanding junk status…
…Adding… From the governor’s office…
The state of Illinois is committed to ensuring we work through the difficult challenges brought on by COVID-19. The state prioritizes its debt payments and will work to ensure our progress on stabilizing the state’s finances continues through this crisis. The state of Illinois’ credit remains investment grade and by working together, Illinois will get through this crisis and rebuild our economy with new resolve.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,140 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 125 additional deaths.
- Bond County: 1 male 70s
- Champaign County: 1 female 80s, 1 male 80s
- Christian County: 1 male 70s
- Cook County: 1 male 30s, 2 females 40s, 1 male 40s, 3 females 50s, 6 males 50s, 5
females 60s, 8 males 60s, 1 unknow 60s, 8 females 70s, 18 males 70s, 10 females 80s, 17
males 80s, 6 females 90s, 5 males 90s, 1 male 100+
- DuPage County: 1 female 80s, 2 males 90s
- Kane County: 1 female 70s
- Lake County: 1 male 50s, 1 female 60s, 2 females 80s, 3 females 90s, 2 males 90s
- Madison County: 1 female 70s
- McHenry County: 1 male 60s, 1 female 70s
- McLean County: 1 female 80s
- Monroe County: 1 female 80s
- St. Clair County: 1 male 60s, 2 males 70s, 1 female 90s
- Will County: 1 male 50s, 1 male 60s, 1 male 70s, 2 females 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
Alexander County is now reporting a case. Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 25,733 cases, including 1,072 deaths, in 90 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years.
Twenty-two residents and one staff member at Symphony of Joliet nursing home have died of COVID-19, a spokeswoman for the facility said Wednesday.
The number of deaths at Symphony has risen sharply since early last week, when it reported a total of three deaths, including the staff member.
Nursing homes nationwide have become epicenters and “accelerators” of the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nursing homes and other places which are already following the rules might want to look at a study which found that increasing the humidity in enclosed places to 40-60 percent could help slow the spread.
Erik Baylis’ eight Chicago bars and restaurants have been closed since Illinois barred in-person dining starting on St. Patrick’s Day, smack in the middle of what he says is typically the most lucrative month of the year.
Baylis, who furloughed his 450-plus employees, assumed an insurance policy would cover some of his losses during the coronavirus shutdown, which is causing him to miss out on $5 million to $6 million in revenue each month.
He was shocked when he received a letter from his insurance company saying it would not. […]
Baylis is among a growing contingent of business owners across the country who are suing insurance companies for denying claims for business interruption insurance as revenues take a nosedive during the COVID-19 pandemic. Without the money, some say they may not be able to reopen or hire back laid-off employees.
You also gotta figure they’ll be hugely reluctant to pay claims if the “reopen now” people get their way and people catch the virus because a business owner didn’t take proper precautions.
Illinois students likely won’t be returning to classrooms for the remainder of the school year.
Illinois Deputy Gov. Jesse Ruiz suggested Wednesday that the suspension of in-person instruction for all schools, which began March 17, could be extended through the end of the school year. An official announcement is expected by the week’s end.
“We’ve applied and received a federal waiver to exempt all students from accountability assessments for one year, as soon as it became clear that suspension of in-person instruction would extend beyond the initial two-week announcement and most likely again through the end of the school year,” Ruiz said.
ACLU voices concern about checkpoints being set up by Chicago police across the city
U of I sets up a coronavirus emergency fund for affected students’ tuition and housing
Cook County Jail inmates begin refusing food over COVID-19, sheriff forwards their petition for better treatment to judge
Sens. Dick Durbin, Tammy Duckworth named to congressional task force to advise Trump on reopening economy
$349 billion federal small-business aid fund runs dry; some in Chicago area were lucky but others are left in the lurch
Chicago-area mail carriers navigate coronavirus challenges: Customers eager to chat, the pain of postage-due notices and Postal Service’s financial collapse.
Chicago Park District pushes back summer camp sign-up
The military won’t say how many coronavirus cases are on the Naval Station Great Lakes base
What if back to normal is never? Entertainment companies and cultural nonprofits are feeling increasingly pessimistic.
State Rep. Carol Ammons and Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons said their daughter, unopposed county board candidate Titianna Ammons, received a death threat in the mail Monday.
The letter threatened to kill their daughter if Carol Ammons were elected chairwoman of the Champaign County Democrats at its meeting Wednesday, where she did become the chairwoman.
“In the past Carol and I have dealt with threats directed towards us, but it is reprehensible that an individual would threaten the life of our daughter,” Aaron Ammons said. “The author of the letter has caused undue stress and anxiety to our family as well as the dedicated employees that work in our offices. While we are taking this threat very seriously, we will not be bullied or intimidated by whomever is behind this. Titianna is strong, focused, and resilient in the face of all of the challenges she’s facing and she/we will NOT be moved!”
Today, Governors JB Pritzker (IL), Gretchen Whitmer (MI), Mike DeWine (OH), Tony Evers (WI), Tim Walz (MN), Eric Holcomb (IN) and Andy Beshear (KY) announced that they will work in close coordination to reopen the economy in the Midwest region.
The governors said, “We are doing everything we can to protect the people of our states and slow the spread of COVID-19, and we are eager to work together to mitigate the economic crisis this virus has caused in our region. Here in the Midwest, we are bound by our commitment to our people and the community. We recognize that our economies are all reliant on each other, and we must work together to safely reopen them so hardworking people can get back to work and businesses can get back on their feet.
“Today, we are announcing that Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, and Kentucky will work in close coordination to reopen our economies in a way that prioritizes our workers’ health. We look forward to working with experts and taking a fact-based, data-driven approach to reopening our economy in a way that protect families from the spread of COVID-19.
“Our number one priority when analyzing when best to reopen our economy is the health and safety of our citizens. We will make decisions based on facts, science, and recommendations from experts in health care, business, labor, and education.
“We will closely examine at least these four factors when determining when best to reopen our economy:
• Sustained control of the rate of new infections and hospitalizations.
• Enhanced ability to test and trace.
• Sufficient health care capacity to handle resurgence.
• And best practices for social distancing in the workplace.
“Phasing in sectors of our economy will be most effective when we work together as a region. This doesn’t mean our economy will reopen all at once, or that every state will take the same steps at the same time. But close coordination will ensure we get this right. Over time, people will go back to work, restaurants will reopen, and things will go back to normal. We look forward to working together as one region to tackle this challenge together.”
* Let’s take a quick look at the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget’s revised projections as compared to GOMB’s forecast back in February, when the governor first released his proposed Fiscal Year 2021 budget.
Individual Income Taxes: ($1.765 billion) or 8.8 percent below February estimates
Corporate Income Taxes: ($442 million) or 17.8 percent below February estimates
Half-year revenue from potential graduated income tax: ($261 million) or 18.2 percent below February estimates
Sales Taxes ($1.585 billion) or 17.5 percent below February estimates
Lottery Proceeds ($92 million)
Casino Gaming ($7 million)
Other sources and transfers in to the general funds: ($472 million)
GRAND TOTAL REVENUE CHANGE: ($4.625 billion)
Short-term bond repayment and pay off rollover from the Treasurer’s investment borrowing: ($1.6 billion)
TOTAL PROJECTED DEFICIT: ($7.4 billion) without graduated income tax; ($6.2 billion) with graduated income tax
I gotta figure that’s too low, but whatevs.
To put this into context, back in June of 2017, a month before the logjam finally broke and the General Assembly passed a budget and an income tax hike over Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto, Illinois’ FY17 budget deficit was estimated by COGFA to be $6.2 billion.
So, we’re right back to square one without help from the federal government. Or even worse if the constitutional amendment fails.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s main campaign fund paid nearly $462,000 in legal fees in the first three months of 2020 to a law firm that employs former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, new campaign finance records show.
Federal investigators over the past year have raided the homes of two close Madigan associates, and the Tribune reported late last year that four people who have been interviewed as part of an ongoing corruption probe were asked questions about the speaker and his political operation. […]
“The fees represent legal counsel engaged over the past year to monitor ongoing investigations,” Madigan spokeswoman Eileen Boyce wrote in an email late Wednesday. “The speaker’s status with respect to any probe remains unchanged, and he expects to continue to engage counsel to monitor the situation and provide counsel until investigations conclude.”
Friends of Michael J. Madigan paid $461,967.80 in legal fees to law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman in the quarter that ended March 31, according to a quarterly campaign disclosure filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections on Wednesday just ahead of the midnight deadline.
Madigan has used Katten before, but only for a handful of items. Almost all of its legal work for Madigan has been during the first three months of this year. Needless to say, $462K is a lot of money just to “monitor ongoing investigations.” Katten has a white-collar criminal defense division.
Katten appears to be the only law firm paid by Speaker Madigan in the first quarter. His personal campaign committee shelled out more than $1.2 million in legal fees last year, mostly to Kulwin, Masciopinto & Kulwin (Alaina Hampton’s attorneys) and Hinshaw & Culbertson.
* On the one hand, the Democratic governor is facing public pressure from the left side of his own party to release thousands of state prisoners, including from Stateville, which is populated with particularly hardcore convicts…
Stateville now up to number 6. A slow-motion train wreck. @GovPritzker@JBPritzker let us help. We can work to find thousands of people who can be safely released to avoid the horrible fate we’re otherwise condemning them to. https://t.co/MFoUiueRey
* On the other hand, a conservative Republican who recently claimed the governor was “acting like a dictator,” issued this press release yesterday about Pritzker’s 13 commutations since March 11th…
State Representative John M. Cabello (R-Machesney Park) has released the names of prisoners (attached) who have been granted a commutation in the past week by Governor JB Pritzker. The list includes perpetrators of violent crimes including murder, armed robbery and home invasion.
“Governor Pritzker used his executive authority to commute the sentences of murderers and armed robbers in an unbelievable attempt to protect these prisoners from the Coronavirus. People in many nursing homes, however, are not allowed to see their families and are “locked down” in order to protect them. I am releasing the names of these offenders in an effort to let the public know whose sentences were commuted and advise victims and witnesses that these people are no longer in prison,” Representative Cabello said.
“The Governor is undermining the criminal justice system and potentially endangering the victims and family members as well as those who may have testified in court resulting in the original incarceration. In what world do we release murderers into the community and be more concerned about their safety over the safety of the public?” asked Cabello.
“It has been reported that Governor Pritzker is doing this “quietly” so I think that it is necessary to expose his actions and warn all of the people in our communities who will be affected by this. People on cruise ships have been required to stay in their cabins when infections of Coronavirus are found, yet here in Illinois we release prisoners and order everyone else to shelter in place and force businesses to close. This truly is a new world,” added Cabello.
Representative Cabello serves the 68th District, which includes portions of Rockford, Loves Park, Machesney Park and Cherry Valley.
* And here they are…
Victoria McCue was sentenced to the minimum penalty of 20 years in 2007. She had claimed her husband punched her in the abdomen multiple times before she shot him.
Alma Durr murdered her infant in 1996 after smoking 12 rocks of cocaine.
James Money filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month with several other prisoners in an attempt to obtain a release. He was diagnosed with Stage 3 metastatic thyroid cancer in 2016 and was at the time of filing the lawsuit within 90 days of his release date.
Anyway, I don’t have all day to Google these folks, so maybe y’all can help in comments.
* ACLU of Illinois executive director Colleen Connell…
It is sad to see an elected official playing politics with public health when responding to efforts to reduce the likelihood of further spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 inside Illinois prisons. Illinois prisoners are dying because they are held in conditions that often are unsanitary and rarely allow for social distancing.
Releasing prisoners from these settings improves safety for other detainees, people who work in the corrections system as guards and administrators and also helps protect the communities where Illinois prisons are located. The people who are being released have served time – some of them years. The release of these names is not another opportunity to create faux outrage and perpetuate a criminal legal system that too often confuses being tough with being smart.
Our first and foremost priority right now should be to address the pandemic that has taken the life of nearly 1,000 Illinois residents, and brought grief and fear to thousands of others. It is not the time to posture about imagined dangers of medically-vulnerable people being released from our overcrowded state prison system. We can be better.
More than 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment aid since President Trump declared a national emergency four weeks ago, a staggering loss of jobs that has wiped out a decade of employment gains and pushed families to line up at food banks as they await government help.
Last week, 5.2 million people filed unemployment insurance claims, the Labor Department reported Thursday, making it among one of the bigger spikes, although smaller than the 6.6 million people who applied the week before and the record 6.9 million people who applied the week that ended on March 28.
The United States has not seen this level of job loss since the Great Depression, and the government is struggling to respond fast enough to the deadly coronavirus health crisis and the economic crisis triggered by shutting down so many businesses.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) today released new statewide data showing the department processed over 141,000 new initial unemployment claims for the week ending April 11.
As of March 1, the department has processed more than 650,000 initial unemployment claims, 12 times more than the number of claims over the corresponding time period last year, when it processed 53,000 initial unemployment claims. It is also five times greater than the amount processed during the first six weeks of the Great Recession. Statewide unemployment claims data, which reflects activity for the week prior, will be available on the IDES website every Thursday afternoon.
* An oil company’s massive Gulf of Mexico drilling platform exploded last week. A small fire that ignited months ago could not be adequately contained, ultimately resulting in a days-long inferno followed by the explosion. Hundreds of workers have died and many more have been injured since the fire began.
The fire is still dangerous, as shown by the continued daily rise in the platform’s medical casualty report. But that daily increase is easing somewhat because some workers have been temporarily evacuated.
Despite the ongoing fire and the inability to consistently lessen or even halt the platform’s daily casualty increase, oil company officials are now debating whether to order some of its evacuated employees to rejoin the workers who are still on the job.
When asked why they would consider doing this, some executives have pointed to the company’s stock value, which has tumbled 50 percent since the fire began.
