Springfield News
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Chicago-based marijuana dispensary Sunnyside Lakeview may become the first dispensary in Illinois to unionize. Last week, workers received ballots for their union election, which was made more urgent by the coronavirus pandemic, they said.
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Influential labor unions are asking a federal judge to allow for an extended deadline to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would prevent right to work laws from taking hold in Illinois.
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On a day Illinois reported 138 new deaths from the coronavirus — totaling 3,111 since Illinois’ first death in mid-March — Gov. JB Pritzker said it’s possible Illinois’ Covid-19 trajectory has plateaued, with metrics like hospital resource usage and number of new cases essentially flat.
[Hannah Meisel/The Daily Line]
“I certainly am concerned that we're going to be on a plateau for a long period of time,” Pritzker said during his daily Covid-19 press briefing Thursday.
Early models for Covid-19 in Illinois predicted a tidy bell curve with a “peak” in mid-April. Pritzker said he still hoped for such a trajectory, but no one would know whether the state was on the downward side of the virus’ growth “until you see it in the rearview mirror,” warning that a plateau might end in a surge in cases and hospitalizations.
But even a plateau is better than exceeding Illinois’ healthcare system capacity, the governor said.
“If you can maintain a plateau, for a period of time, and there is still hospital bed availability that’s good enough,” Pritzker said, defending using certain metrics in his plan to reopen Illinois’ economy in phases and by region.
While each of the state’s four regions identified in Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” plan are currently in the second phase, moving into later phases of the reopening plan is partially dependent on the mass expansion of testing in Illinois.
In mid-April, Covid-19 testing became available to anyone experiencing symptoms indicative of the virus, but when testing finally passed 10,000 specimens collected per day two weeks ago, the rate of positive tests began to drop. Statewide, the positive test rate reached a recent new low of 14.85 percent, though the northeast region of Illinois has a higher positive test rate hovering around 20 percent.
[Hannah Meisel/The Daily Line]
Illinois remains far behind in testing, according to testing metrics suggested by a new study from Harvard University that says the state should be performing 64,000 tests daily by May 15 — a number that far exceeds the 17,783 test results reported to the Illinois Department of Public Health between Wednesday and Thursday, which itself was a near-record for testing in Illinois.
Pritzker touted the state as second among the 10 most populous states in the U.S. for testing metrics. He suggested that a worldwide supply shortage and lax coordination with the Trump administration have been challenges.
“I don't think 64,000 is adequate for the state of Illinois,“ he said. “We're going to need many more tests than that.”
[Hannah Meisel/The Daily Line]
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Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday said none of the four regions of the state can move into the next phase of reopening the economy until late May — even as some areas of the state have been meeting criteria for weeks.
The reason, Pritzker said, is that the benchmarks for his plan will only rely on data starting this month and not the previous months of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The first of May marked the beginning of Pritzker’s latest stay-at-home order with a few relaxed restrictions and a face-covering mandate. But it also marked the baseline from which the four regions would be measured in order to move into the next phase of reopening under Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” plan unveiled Tuesday.
Related: Pritzker announces benchmarked plan to restart economy
All four regions entered the second phase on May 1. But Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) data shows Northeast Illinois, which includes Cook County and the collar counties, has a more difficult path moving into the third phase than the remaining three regions of the state.
IDPH data show North Central Illinois, Central Illinois and Southern Illinois are well on their way to meeting benchmarks with positive test rates far below 20 percent.
[Hannah Meisel/The Daily Line]
[Hannah Meisel/The Daily Line]Republican Rep: Pritzker benchmark “punishes” some areas
[Hannah Meisel/The Daily Line]
Asked Thursday whether historic data would be used to determine whether a region of the state could move forward to the third phase of economic recovery before May 29, Pritzker said no.
“Not for the purpose of the Restore Illinois plan,” Pritzker said.
State Rep. Ryan Spain (R-Peoria) said ignoring data prior to May 1 punishes areas of the state who have already been meeting criteria for weeks.
“May 1 was not a special date for any part of the state,” Spain told The Daily Line.
Spain said Peoria-area hospitals have already been monitoring the test results from surrounding counties and doing contact tracing and capacity monitoring and have seen low positive test rates for weeks.
Spain’s claim was checked against the Peoria County Health Department’s data, where a spokeswoman told The Daily Line the department did not have comprehensive daily data available but provided “milestones.”
On April 16, for example, Peoria County’s positivity rate was 11 percent, according to PCHD spokeswoman Diana Scott. As of Thursday, the rate is 4.7 percent, she said.
Spain also said lumping large cities like Peoria, Rock Island, Rockford and Bloomington-Normal in the same region with more rural areas to make up the North Central Illinois region was inappropriate, though he said a county-by-county approach would also be wrong.
“There’s no scenario where grouping Peoria, Rockford, the Quad Cities and Galena makes sense,” Spain said. “Those are not hospitalization use patterns that make sense.”
Peoria preps counter reopening plan
Peoria-area officials will be unveiling a regional plan to counter Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” plan, and Spain warned Pritzker would be wise to consider it or else risk defiance from constituents. Spain is advocating for a plan to divide the state into smaller regions, like Michigan’s reopening plan, which splits its state into six regions.
Pritzker defended the four-region approach.
“They're not based upon how many Covid-positive people are in your particular village or town or city, but rather … how much health care is available if and when there’s a surge,” Pritzker said. “And let's be clear, the virus hasn't gone away. It is still out there.”
Northeast Illinois has the most unfavorable metrics in the state, according to IDPH data. As of Wednesday, of the 12,420 test results reported for the region, 21.93 percent of tests came back positive. Since May 1, that figure has only dipped below 20 percent twice, and just barely.
[Hannah Meisel/The Daily Line]
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Thousands of local governments in Illinois are estimated to receive a 15 percent drop in state revenue in their new fiscal year, according to a report released Monday. That adds to continuing cuts made over the last decade, according to findings by the Illinois Municipal League, a Springfield-based advocacy group representing cities, villages and towns throughout Illinois.
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More than 60 percent of Latinos tested for the coronavirus in Illinois have received positive test results, Gov. JB Pritzker said Wednesday. The results reflect a much higher proportion than any other racial group in the state.
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Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday refused to say whether he would continue issuing disaster declarations and executive orders in perpetuity until a vaccine, effective treatment or herd immunity emerges to effectively end the coronavirus pandemic.
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On a day Illinois reported a record-high coronavirus death count for a single day — Gov. JB Pritzker announced a five-phase plan to reopen Illinois’ economy on a regional basis after weeks of calls for an approach that recognizes the different impacts the virus is making throughout the state.
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After suffering a weekend defeat in its case against Gov. JB Pritzker and local law enforcement, a church in northwest Illinois is appealing its federal First Amendment suit seeking relief from the governor’s stay-at-home order to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Meanwhile, a progressive group of lawmakers and aldermen is advancing a proposal for a six-month break on rent in light of the coronavirus pandemic’s economic tidal wave.
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The state saw a reduction in the number of new deaths due to the coronavirus pandemic, as the number reported between Sunday and Monday fell to 46 — the least in two weeks — but Gov. JB Pritzker warned that numbers based on one day may not be a reliable metric to discern the trajectory of Covid-19 in the state.
Illinois’ total death toll stands at 2,662 since the first death was reported seven weeks ago, with two of the highest-death toll days coming in just the last week.
