* AFSCME Council 31 memo to state employee members…
Important Updates for State Employees
Rigid Mandate Won’t Work
More and more employers are turning to vaccination mandates in the epic battle to contain the spread of COVID-19. Tyson Foods and United Airlines are the latest Illinois-based companies to announce that employees must get vaccinated or be fired.
This week Governor Pritzker took a step down that road, announcing that vaccinations would be required for all employees in the state’s congregate facilities in DOC, DHS, DVA and DJJ, citing emergency conditions that not only jeopardize employee health, but that of individuals in the state’s custody or care.
The governor left open how this requirement would be implemented, stating that the details would be worked out in bargaining with the unions representing state employees. AFSCME has already contacted CMS to initiate those negotiations.
AFSCME has already made clear to the Administration that our union opposes a rigid, universal vaccination mandate. Our fundamental priority is to protect the lives and health of every union member and the people they serve. That’s why, since the first availability of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, AFSCME has worked to educate and encourage union members to be vaccinated in order to protect themselves, their families, co-workers and communities.
We have been working collaboratively with state agencies over the past months to increase vaccination rates and reduce the incidence of COVID in veterans’ homes, correctional facilities and care centers. And those efforts have been making steady progress.
In fact, in many of these state facilities vaccination rates now exceed those in the surrounding communities. More importantly, the numbers of COVID cases have declined dramatically in every one of these settings. In fact, some facilities have had no new cases at all—even with the arrival of the highly contagious Delta variant.
In other words, the combination of education about vaccine efficacy, rigorous testing, and appropriate protective measures, such as masking, has in fact been highly effective in reducing the spread of the virus in these facilities. Moreover, it is clear that the impacted agencies could do much more to contain the virus through such proactive measures.
First and foremost, they could reverse the extremely irresponsible plan to terminate what’s been called “COVID time” which our union strongly opposes (see more information below).
Vaccinations should not be seen as punitive measures, but rather as protective ones. AFSCME believes that more time and effort are needed to raise vaccination rates through voluntary action. There’s a need for more education—both about the highly reliable science on which the vaccines are based and about the threat that unvaccinated individuals pose to others—as well as incentive programs that have greatly increased vaccination rates in other sectors.
Before its recent action to institute a vaccination mandate, United Airlines already had a 90% vaccination rate among its pilots and an 80% vaccination rate among flight attendants. One factor credited with this strong uptake is an agreement reached with the airline’s unions for an additional day off for all vaccinated employees.
Employees in the state’s congregate facilities have been on the job every day throughout this pandemic, putting their own health and safety at risk to assure public safety and care for vulnerable individuals. In addition to the danger posed by the coronavirus, they have continued to face the dangers posed daily by assaults from patients and offenders and other constant stressors in the workplace. Just over the past few weeks, a nurse at Elgin MHC was beaten nearly to death by a patient, several officers at Pontiac CC were sent to the hospital as a result of injuries suffered in an attack by inmates, and an officer at Shawnee CC committed suicide in the facility parking lot.
There are other paths the state could follow that would not serve to increase tensions and stress in the way that a hard mandate would do. President Biden laid out such a path last week for most federal government employees: All employees must either be fully vaccinated OR be regularly tested. In fact, this is the approach that some agencies in state government are already taking. Such a flexible and balanced approach is preferable to a rigid universal vaccination requirement—and AFSCME will fight for it in the negotiations set to get underway.
Don’t End COVID Time-Off Policy!
Over AFSCME’s strong objections, the State intends to proceed with its plan to end “COVID Time” effective Monday, August 9. The COVID Time policy allows individuals who contract COVID-19 (or are under a health department quarantine) to have paid time off without using their own benefit time.
Under the revised policy, employees will have to use their own benefit time if they become sick with COVID and would have the option of filing a workers’ compensation claim to recoup that time.
AFSCME believes that “COVID Time” is a key means of helping to contain COVID outbreaks, especially in congregate settings such as prisons and veterans’ homes.
In a letter to CMS Chief of Labor Relations, Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch stressed that “AFSCME is very concerned that requiring any employee—whether vaccinated or unvaccinated—to use their own benefit time if they contract COVID could contribute to a heightened risk for all employees,” pointing out that employees who do not have any benefit time on the books may end up coming to work sick and infecting their coworkers.
Our union intends to make the restoration of COVID Time a top priority in the negotiations over the proposed vaccination mandate.
Hey, AFSCME. You wouldn’t need COVID Time all that much if your members were vaccinated. But if it gets you to agree to a firm vax mandate, so be it, I suppose.
Parents of Chicago Public Schools students will soon have more transparency around misconduct and discipline thanks to the efforts of State Senator Robert Peters (D-Chicago).
“I think every parent probably expects that fights in schools are going to happen, but that doesn’t mean they should be kept in the dark when they do,” Peters said. “If parents aren’t aware of what’s going on at their kids’ schools, then it’s entirely possible that their kids might not get the treatment for trauma they need simply because their parents don’t know they need it.”
House Bill 15 requires CPS to provide written notification of the situation and circumstances to parents or guardians of students who commit or are victims of misconduct. The law defines misconduct as any incident involving offensive touching, a physical altercation, or the use of violence.
“Requiring the creation, storing, and distribution of a written record will help the parents, students, and schools deal with misconduct in an open and transparent way,” Peters said.
The law is effective immediately. It passed the General Assembly with no opposition and became law Friday.
* I’m going to take much or all of this summer afternoon off. I’ll be back if some big news breaks, but there’s plenty to comment on and don’t forget the live coverage post.
Jamey Johnson will provide the afternoon entertainment…
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 16,742 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 64 additional deaths since reporting last Friday, July 30, 2021. More than 75% of Illinois adults have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and more than 59% of Illinois adults are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 1,436,353 cases, including 23,503 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Since reporting on Friday, July 30, 2021, laboratories have reported 365,210 specimens for a total of 27,188,772. As of last night, 1,200 individuals in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 246 patients were in the ICU and 121 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators. Hospitalizations with COVID-19 are up 33% from what was reported last week, those in the ICU with COVID-19 are up 47%, and patients on ventilators almost double in just one week at 95%.
The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from July 30-August 5, 2021 is 4.6%. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from July 30-August 5, 2021 is 5.2%. However, regional 7-day test positivity averages range from 3.1% to 10.3%. http://www.dph.illinois.gov/regionmetrics?regionID=11.
A total of 13,388,013 vaccines have been administered in Illinois as of last midnight. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 25,244 doses. Since reporting on Friday, July 30, 2021, 176,709 doses were reported administered in Illinois.
*All data are provisional and will change. Additional information and COVID-19 data can be found at http://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19.
The Illinois Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) State Lodge has expressed its opposition to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s order that certain law enforcement officers employed at Department of Corrections and Juvenile Justice facilities must receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
“We are not opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine, we are opposed to being forced to take it,” said Scot Ward, president of FOP Corrections Lodge 263, whose members work for the Departments of Corrections and Juvenile Justice. “It is always dangerous when the state unilaterally decides to deny the Constitutional rights of targeted groups of citizens, such as our members who work in prisons and juvenile facilities. Even the detainees we supervise are not being forced to take these vaccinations.”
The FOP is also opposed to the move made recently by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, who ordered that any Secretary of State employee who cannot provide proof of vaccination must submit to a COVID-19 test every two weeks.
“The government has resorted to ‘vaccine shaming’ its public safety employees rather than convincing them that getting an immunization is the best course of action,” said Terry Trueblood, president of FOP Illinois Secretary of State Lodge 95, whose members include Secretary of State Police officers. “The state should instead do a better job of convincing its citizens, regardless of where they work, to choose to take the vaccine.”
As subscribers know, a much higher percentage of detainees are taking the shots than their guards. And, please, whining about a test every two weeks? C’mon.
Children make up the largest share of new coronavirus cases in McLean County, according to data from the McLean County Health Department (MCHD). […]
People age 18 and under make up close to one-third (32%) of coronavirus cases in the last week in the county. Children under age 12 are still not eligible to receive the COVID vaccine. […]
The county reported 218 coronavirus cases from July 28 to Aug. 4, including 18 new cases on Wednesday. The weekly total includes 58 people ages 1 to 17, three infants under age 1 and seven patients who are 18 years old.
Almost 72,000 children and teens caught Covid-19 last week — a “substantial” increase from a week earlier, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported Tuesday.
The group counted 71,726 new cases from July 22 - 29. That is a “substantial” increase from the nearly 39,000 cases reported a week before, and five times as many kids who were sick at the end of June. The definition of a child varies by state but generally includes those up to age 17 or 18.
Cases don’t automatically translate into hospitalizations with kids. But that’s also becoming a problem.
In announcing mask mandates for schools and daycares this week, Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said there’s an increase of COVID-hospitalizations in cases among young people.
“The percent of hospitalizations among those younger than 20 years old tripled from 2.5% to 7.8%,” Ezike said.
In a sign that the delta variant is affecting more children on a daily basis, an 11-month-old girl from the Houston area had to be airlifted to Temple because no pediatric hospitals in Houston would accept her as a transfer patient.
“She needed to be intubated immediately because she was having seizures,” said Patricia Darnauer, the administrator for LBJ Hospital. “We looked at all five major pediatric hospital groups and none [had beds] available.” […]
“The emergency rooms at the major children’s hospitals here in Houston, the largest medical center in the world, are extremely crowded,” said [pediatrician Dr. Christina Propst]. “They are filling, if not full, as are the hospitals and intensive care units.”
Pediatricians across Palm Beach County are taking on social media, television and email to warn of a surge in COVID-19 cases among children both locally and across the state. They are concerned not only about the growing number of cases among the young but also about the severity of illness they are witnessing.
“Locally, we are seeing an alarming rise in children being hospitalized for COVID-19,” pediatrician Dr. Tommy Schechtman wrote in a letter Sunday to his practice’s 15,000 families.
Schechtman said in an interview this week that he was driven to pen the letter by a variety of concerns, including having learned that on one day in the past week, 24 children were admitted to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach.
Lee Health says the number of children admitted to their hospitals for COVID-19 has tripled during this wave of the pandemic. They’ve seen as many as nine children hospitalized with the virus recently - that includes two children who are currently in ICU at Golisano Children’s Hospital. […]
Armando Llechu, Lee Health’s Chief Officer of Hospital Operations says this time with more children getting admitted to Lee Health hospitals.
“I believe the most we had admitted at any one time, was three, and today I believe there are eight. We’ve had as many as nine admitted in the children’s hospital,” he said.
He says those aren’t big numbers, but just to put things into perspective, he says that’s a 300 percent jump in children hospital admissions for COVID-19 compared to the first wave of the virus.
It’s not wildly out of control, but it is a real problem.
Diane Lipscomb, medical director for inpatient pediatrics and the pediatric intensive care unit at Mercy Springfield, said Wednesday that since June 1, and the onset of the delta variant surge, her hospital has seen an increase in pediatric patients who have been critically ill with the virus.
“In prior surges, we had very few children, if at all any admitted,” Lipscomb said. “During this surge, we are now seeing children admitted at the rates of zero to five per day.”
Infections among children
The number of children under the age of 12 testing positive for the virus increased by 113% from June to July in Greene County, according to the Springfield-Greene County Health Department.
It’s unclear whether the trend is occurring nationwide because there is no regularly updated, comprehensive data on child Covid-19 cases available. The last report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in early June, found hospitalization rates among children peaked at 2.1 per 100,000 in January 2021. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) releases a weekly report on child cases and hospitalizations, but not all states regularly submit data.
While the [Illinois Department of Public Health] does track the age of those who test positive for COVID-19 over time, the department’s hospital utilization data available on its website does not include the age of the patients.
* And there’s also an unusual summertime problem with RSV…
Hospitals in Rhode Island are seeing an increased number of children being diagnosed with a virus usually only seeing during the winter months.
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) can cause at-risk people who become infected to wind up in the hospital.
Hasbro Children’s Hospital tells Target 12 they normally start seeing kids with RSV from November to March, but as of late, there’s been a surge of cases in Florida and more infections are showing up in Rhode Island.
Experts say about a million kids wind up in the hospital every year because of RSV, which infects the lungs and breathing passages.
For most people who get infected, it’s like the common cold, but the virus can cause serious complications for those under the age of 2 and the elderly.
Health officials have expressed concern over a simultaneous rise in delta infections and cases of a respiratory virus known as respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV — a highly contagious, flulike illness that is typically more likely to affect children and older adults.
Cases of RSV have risen gradually since early June, with an even greater spike in the past month, according to data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. RSV, which can cause symptoms that include a runny nose, coughing, sneezing and fever, normally begins to spread in the fall, making this summer spike unusual.
In a series of posts on Twitter, Dr. Heather Haq, a pediatrician at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, described an increase in both coronavirus and RSV hospitalizations. Haq is also the chief medical officer for the Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Kids previously tended to do much better at surviving a COVID-19 infection, but deaths are also popping up.
Two children with COVID-19 died over the weekend, according to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.
One of the children was a patient at the hospital, said Le Bonheur’s Dr. Nick Hysmith, a pediatric infectious disease specialist. Another child died during transit to the hospital, he said. The child was coming to the regional hospital from a neighboring hospital.
* So, it would be really helpful if news media outlets like the Rockford Register Star stopped glorifying crackpots…
“We are vehemently against mandating masks,” said Jim Mcllroy, founder of Elevate & Inspire, a parents group that held an “unmask our children” rally last month outside the Winnebago County Health Department.
“We are 100% in favor of parental choice. Accountability and responsibility of the children is something that is in the hands of parents, and that is not something that should be in the hands of the governor. It should not be in the hands of the mayor, it should not be in the hands of Dr. (Sandra) Martel from the Winnebago County Health Department,” he said.
So, no local or state public health rules for kids, eh? What could possibly go wrong?
Rod Blagojevich used to joke that “he barely knew where the law library was” as he earned his law degree from Pepperdine University amid surfing the Pacific Ocean and mingling with movie stars in Malibu.
Judging by the lawsuit the disgraced former Illinois governor filed this week challenging a ban on him running for state and local office, Blagojevich still has a penchant for skipping his legal homework, said experts who dismissed his action as baseless.
“This is a frivolous lawsuit,” said Ann Lousin, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Illinois at Chicago law school whose lengthy legal background includes helping draft the state’s constitution and chairing the Chicago Bar Association’s constitutional law committee. “This lawsuit is not going anywhere.”
* And, perhaps I’m being too cynical, but I’m starting to wonder if this is really just about adding a dramatic element to the “documentary” being produced by ABC7, which initially “broke” the story on the disgraced former governor’s lawsuit…
A film crew was on hand for the news conference Monday; Blagojevich would not say who they were, but one crew member shared that he’s with ABC News, which is producing a documentary on Blagojevich set to air in the fall.
I never thought I could get even more disgusted by this guy, or by some of the coverage he receives. And yet, here we are.
Governor JB Pritzker and State Senator Dale Fowler visited the southern tip of Illinois Thursday to announce a new milestone in the effort to construct a Port District in Cairo.
In April, the Alexander-Cairo Port District completed a project labor agreement with the Illinois AFL-CIO to allow for more than 500 local Illinois union workers to fill the jobs created by construction of the port.
On Thursday, Labor Local 773 signed on to provide workers for the project.
Alexander-Cairo Port District Chairman Larry Klein says they’re currently going through the engineering and design work.
“Because anyone in the construction trades realizes you have to have a floor plan before you start constructing anything. So, when we get the floor plan designed that’s when we’re going to put all the people here today to work. That will tickle me to death.” […]
80% of U.S. inland barge traffic travels past Cairo.
When state Rep. Carol Ammons was suddenly replaced on new Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch’s legislative leadership team in late May, the demotion included a roughly $18,000 pay cut for the Urbana Democrat.
But a few weeks later, Welch eased Ammons’ financial pain by appointing her chairwoman of a newly created Small Business, Tech Innovation and Entrepreneurship Committee, a post that restores more than half of the money she lost.
Records in the House clerk’s office, however, show that Ammons, who receives a $10,574 stipend for her role as chairwoman, is the only member of the new committee to which “at this time, no legislation has been assigned.” […]
The date of Welch’s appointment — the last day of June — allowed Ammons to be paid her stipend as if she had held the position for the entire month.
By tradition, members with her seniority are either put in leadership or given a committee to chair. She was kicked out of leadership, so she was given a committee. The timing is a bit odd, of course, but the appointment itself really isn’t. And the fact that nobody else was appointed to the committee surely sparked some interest. Ammons didn’t show up for June’s special session or participate remotely. A little “member management” may have been in order.
Local state Rep. Carol Ammons’ new Illinois House committee no longer has no members or pending business.
Following last week’s report about the June 30 appointment of Ammons, D-Urbana, as chairwoman of the new House Committee on Small Business, Tech Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Speaker Chris Welch appointed nine Democrats to serve on the panel, including state Rep. Sue Scherer of Decatur. […]
“The caucus was contacted July 1, long before any of your inquiries, to get in touch with our chief of staff if they’d like to be on the committee. Time must be allowed for that, and as already mentioned, there was a lot of interest,” said [said Speaker Welch’s spokesperson Jaclyn Driscoll], who contended that “appointing members to a committee takes longer than one day.” […]
So far, no Republicans have been assigned to the committee by House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, who wrote a letter Monday to Ammons that expressed surprise about the committee’s sudden creation and sought advice on the kinds of people best suited to serve. […]
“Without a clear definition of what the work of your newly created committee will be, it is difficult to appoint members that can bring their expertise to this topic … whatever it may be,” he wrote to Ammons.
That was one snarky letter, so click here and read the rest. Leader Durkin vowed not to appoint any Republicans to the committee until he hears back.
* We talked about Greg Hinz’s interview with Kirk Dillard the other day about a possible run for governor. Since then, he’s talked with Rachel Hinton…
Kirk Dillard, who is currently the chairman of the Regional Transportation Agency’s board of directors, said in a statement Wednesday people “whom I respect and whose opinions I value reached out to me” and asked him to consider running to “restore political balance to Illinois and make it safe and function well again.
“They also believe I am a Republican who can win a general election as the ‘Sun Times’ once opined,” Dillard’s statement continued. “I owe it to them, the people of Illinois and to my family to carefully listen. Currently, I am laser focused on getting the northeastern Illinois transportation system through a pandemic.” […]
“With all due respect, what Illinois needs is not yet another member of the political class running our state,” Rabine’s statement continued. “We know what the failed policies of the political class has done to this state and voters are tired of it. […]
“The political establishment will have their choice and the regular people will have theirs,” Joe DeBose, Bailey’s spokesman, said. “If [Dillard] decides to join the race, I have a feeling the result will be the same as the last two times he ran.”
“People whom I respect and whose opinions I value reached out to me,” Dillard told the Daily Herald Wednesday.
“They asked me to consider running to give Illinois political balance and to make it safe and work again. These leaders think I am a Republican who can win a general election and govern effectively. I owe it to them, the people of Illinois and my family to carefully listen.” […]
It’s early in the game, but “I think our state needs governance,” said former Republican state Rep. Grant Wehrli of Naperville. “Personally, I think, right now, we have somebody who’d rather be king than governor.”
But “I don’t think there’s a candidate out there right now I’m ready to rally behind,” although “I’m intrigued by Kirk Dillard’s name.”
Wehrli seemed far more interested in picking fights than governing when he was in the House, but maybe he’s changed. I dunno.
