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Get it together, Madison County

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Illinois

* From Madison County’s public health department yesterday…

Oof.

Highland Mayor Joe Michaelis hasn’t yet gotten a response to his letter to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, but he’s okay with it.

“It may sit on his desk for a while,” Michaelis said. “He probably gets a laundry basket full of mail.”

Michaelis wrote a letter to Pritzker dated Sept. 4, and posted it on Facebook, citing his “grave concern” about the impact of the heightened restrictions on businesses in his community.

First, deal with the virus.

* Meanwhile, here’s the BND…

[St. Clair County’s] daily positivity rate dropped sharply from 9.3% on Tuesday to 8.2% on Wednesday. The daily positivity rate is the percentage of positives from a day’s worth of coronavirus tests.

The county’s seven-day positivity rate was 6.8% as of Wednesday, up slightly from 6.6% as of Tuesday.

“If the spread had been stopped back in January or February, this never would have gotten here,” St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern said during the county’s daily briefing Wednesday. “We never would have had to deal with this. We’re doing what we can in St. Clair County to contain the virus and keep as many people as possible from getting it. If we take our foot off the gas, we might see those numbers go up. We’re making progress here.”

Looks like St. Clair County is being held back by Madison County.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 11:05 am

Comments

Wait, you’re telling me that mass death and economic chaos from an international public health emergency is bad for business?

Comment by Precinct Captain Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 11:15 am
==Get it together, Madison County==

Madison County: “Sorry, we can’t hear you over all of these Coughs of Liberty.”

Comment by Roadrager Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 11:23 am
There’s a dramatic difference in leadership between the two County Board Chairs - Mark Kern in St. Clair and Kurt Prenzler in Madison. Kern has been doing daily briefings for months and encouraging individuals and businesses to abide by the rules to control the virus while Prenzler hired his former Campaign Manager with no public health experience on a $95,000 contract to manage the county’s “virus response.” Prenzler also pushed through a resolution to “re-open” Madison County that unfortunately had bipartisan support on the county board.

Comment by SW IL Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 11:27 am
“If the spread had been stopped back in January or February, this never would have gotten here,”

I listened to someone speak after receiving a volunteer of you year award. He said, I always used to say to myself, that’s a bad thing, somebody should do something about that. Then I realized, I was somebody. Max Kern, you have learned that you are somebody. Pass it on to those who need to hear it.

Comment by Earnest Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 11:29 am
=== Max Kern, you have learned that you are somebody===

I think he was speaking about the POTUS.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 11:35 am
“I said “Somebody should do something about that.” Then I realized I am somebody.”

Lily Tomlin

Definitely somebody.

Comment by Bigtwich Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 11:50 am
It’s all the privilege here in Madison County. Privilege turns out to be the cause of misery.
But like Rauner, the privileged can’t see that misery they cause.
They only think of themselves.
It won’t change until a critical number of them get sick and overwhelm our hospital system.
Then the privileged will finally get it
You can’t change someone’s feelings or experience.
They are their own
When your feelings are that of a victim of those who would regulate your behavior and your experience is that of never having boundaries on your behavior
Then it won’t change until you face the consequences of a disease that doesn’t care about you.

Comment by Honeybear Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 11:54 am
And Region 4 is back up over 10% today - while Madison is playing a big part so are some of the other outlier counties.

I do have to give Kudos to St. Clair County on a number of fronts when it comes to their response to COVID from the get go. They were actually more helpful to me and spent more time helping me with a test result SNAFU than my own county. (Tested in St. Clair live adjoining county).

Comment by DownSouth Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 12:18 pm
How are things looking at SIU-Edwardsville? The most recent article I can find in the BND, only mentions the numbers at U of I and ISU.

Comment by Shane Falco Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 12:27 pm
I would think more of my Mayor’s letter and Chamber of Commerce letters to the Governor if they had not been preceded by crickets. Not even once before these letters whining to the Governor for actually doing something did they try to educate the public on wearing masks. How hard would it have been to say let’s help our small businesses stay open by getting with the program. Just crickets.

Comment by Highland Il Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 12:29 pm
Madison County voted to reopen on May 12th. It was approved almost unanimously by both parties on the county board.

The same day, area Dem legislators released an open letter to Governor Pritzker urging him to reopen the region.

Senator Crowe and many others continue to criticize restrictions even as the virus spreads out of control.

There is no leadership here and the people are taking their cues from this vacuum and ignoring health best practices en masse. I’m typically the only person wearing a mask wherever I go.

We’re looking to move

Comment by Bob_Loblaw Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 12:35 pm
Bless Mark Kern’s heart, now when is he going to name names and point out who is is who botched this in January or February. There’s tapes.

Comment by Southern Illinois Infrastructure Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 12:42 pm
Illinois now has a new river: Denial. It flows through every County in Illinois, and in some of them is far broader and deeper than in others.

Comment by revvedup Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 12:44 pm
Sorry to burst the narrative bubble, but a simple perusal of the IDPH Covid website will show you that Madison County has vastly outperformed St. Clair County in cases per population and deaths per population.

Comment by Cadillac Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 12:48 pm
===outperformed===

Past tense. And that’s the only accurate thing in your post.

Three months ago doesn’t matter for the future. Today matters. So go back under your rock.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 12:49 pm
===outperformed===

I mean, seriously, you’re like the kid who just totally failed his midterms whining about how he got a barely passing grade in the previous semester.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 12:56 pm
It occurs to me that Monroe county seems to be flying under the radar on a good bit of this. Getting info from Monroe County HD is like pulling teeth - but if you track them via IDPH website each day, they are seriously under testing and returning daily positvity rates generally in the double digits.

Comment by DownSouth Thursday, Sep 10, 20 @ 1:24 pm
All this neglects the news about the negative tests not being reported properly. When the negatives aren’t reflected the positive will always seem higher.

No mention of that here. As for active infection rate in madison county it’s 1.3% of population.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Sep 11, 20 @ 12:34 am
Anonymous - what news about negatives not being reported accurately are you referring to. A source would be helpful…

Comment by Downstate Friday, Sep 11, 20 @ 8:18 am
The leadership in Madison County on this issue is exactly zero - true, but it wasn’t long ago St. Clair County was holding Madison County back. St. Clair County is also home to the the reports of bars that were closing at 11 pm and re-opening at 12:01 am and has plenty of locations not following the guidance. Kern does give briefings often, unlike Madison County where Kurt Prenzler has done nothing - but let’s not confuse giving a briefing for actual enforcement. Is there an example anyone can give where St Clair County actually enforced the rules other than a “warning” or a talking to?

Comment by Downstate Friday, Sep 11, 20 @ 8:24 am