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CAPITOL RECAP: COVID-19 Positivity Rates, Hospitalizations on Steady Rise

Capitol News Illinois

Through tears, Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike once again called for widespread use of face coverings Friday after warning of increasing COVID-19 hospitalization numbers that could surpass the peaks of April and May.

“I mean it's sad to see the numbers going up again,” Ezike said at a COVID-19 briefing in Chicago. “People have worked really hard to get us through the first phase, … and as we see the numbers go up in the hospital, people are bringing more beds, trying to prepare for the COVID units again, and the staff that went through all that pain to try to save as many people as they can are seeing history repeat itself.”

The virus has now claimed 9,418 lives in Illinois, with another 31 deaths reported over the previous 24 hours, including a person in their 30s, one in their 40s, two in their 60s, 11 in their 70s and the rest 80 or older.

IDPH reported another 3,874 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 Friday among 82,256 test results reported over the previous 24 hours. That brought the total number of cases since the pandemic began to 364,033 among more than 7.1 million test results reported.

Ezike and Gov. JB Pritzker reiterated that face coverings are the most effective means for limiting the spread of the virus, along with keeping six feet of distance from others and not gathering in large crowds. She said she is searching for a message to convey the importance of masking to all, even when meeting in private gatherings.

“And so if you're talking about COVID fatigue from having to keep wearing a mask – think about the COVID fatigue for health care workers, respiratory therapists who are going to have to go through this whole episode again, of trying to fight for people's lives, because we couldn't figure out how to control this virus by doing some of the simple measures that have been prescribed,” she said.

She said the decisions of those who attend unmasked gatherings promote the spread of the virus which can then find its way to more vulnerable populations. She urged those attending unmasked gatherings to “think beyond themselves” and consider who they may unknowingly infect, especially if they have the virus but are not showing symptoms.

“All these people who work with the public on a regular basis – you cannot work from home as a bus driver,” Ezike said. “And so these people have to go to work every day as the disease is increasing throughout the state. And they're the ones that will be dying.”

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 as of Thursday night increased by 35 from the day prior to 2,498, while intensive care bed and ventilator usage by COVID-19 patients remained well above the average of the past several weeks at 511 and 197, respectively. Statewide, 34 percent of ICU beds and 33 percent of hospital beds were available, but some regions had surge capacities below 25 percent.

* * *

REGION 1 MITIGATIONS: Gov. JB Pritzker announced on Thursday, Oct. 22, that Region 1 of the state’s COVID-19 mitigation plan will see a new tier of virus mitigations.

Region 1, which includes the northwest part of the state from Winnebago County to the western border, saw its positivity rate increase to 11.9 percent, according to the most recent data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. It has been over 8 percent for more than two weeks. The continued surge caused the state to implement even stricter mitigation guidelines than ones that have been in place since Oct. 3.

These will take effect Sunday and will include a decrease to the cap on social gatherings from 25 to 10 individuals and table caps at outdoor restaurants of six, rather than 10, among others. The capacity guidelines apply to indoor and outdoor events and are applicable to professional, religious, cultural and social group gatherings, according to the governor’s office.

None of the region’s mitigations apply to schools or polling places, according to the governor’s office.

* * *

MITIGATION ENFORCEMENT: While Gov. JB Pritzker said Friday, Oct. 23, he was not considering a statewide stay-at-home order like he levied earlier in the pandemic, he noted the state will enforce mitigation measures in the various regions subject to them.

Pritzker said he will follow emergency rules approved by a legislative rulemaking committee which allow for warnings, citations and dispersal orders for businesses not following mitigation rules. Authorities can perform checkups at locations and those not following rules “will be subject, potentially, to having proceedings initiated against them to remove their gaming or their liquor licenses,” he said.

Pritzker has noted the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity will give preference to businesses in regions that have had increased mitigations when it distributes Business Interruption Grants funded by the federal government.

He also once again urged federal action on a measure to provide funding for state governments and more grant opportunities to small businesses that have faced business interruptions.

“I'll continue that fight. For whatever reason, that isn't happening, the federal officials, federal congressmen, senators, the president can't seem to get together to get that done,” Pritzker said. “So, what I can say is that, unfortunately we still have to live by the rules here because we don't want people to get sick and die. …The truth is that if everybody will wear their masks, we can get our businesses back open again much quicker.”

That came as four of the state’s 11 mitigation regions were officially subject to increased mitigation measures and exactly half of the state’s 102 counties hit a warning level for COVID-19 spread.

Each of the 11 regions had a COVID-19 test positivity rate of 7 percent or higher, with Region 4, including the Metro East area on the Missouri border near St. Louis, hitting an 8.1 percent positivity rate. Two more days above 8 percent and the region would be subject to increased mitigations for the second time.

The statewide positivity rate decreased slightly to 5.6 percent Friday, as it is driven down by University of Illinois saliva tests that are not included in any of the regional data. The university contributed 8,581 of the state’s tests but only 23 cases over the previous 24 hours, a one-day positivity rate of 0.27 percent.

* * *

ADVICE REMAINS THE SAME: Dr. Omer Badahman, an infectious disease specialist affiliated with multiple hospitals in the St. Clair County area, said at a news conference with Gov. JB Pritzker Thursday, Oct. 22, the community must buy into the fight against COVID-19 for it to be successful.

“If patients end up in our hospital, we’ve already lost half the fight,” he said. “So, the next step is to prevent this pandemic from spreading.”

He said the best ways to mitigate spread have long been known – wearing a face covering, washing hands, keeping six feet of distance from others when in public and not taking part in large gatherings. Illinoisans should also get their flu shot to limit stresses on the medial system, he added.

“The most important thing is masking,” he said. “There is no argument about whether masks work or not. Not anymore. Masks work to protect you, who's wearing it, and they protect others. Wear it as much as you can. If you're out there shopping, at work, picking up your kids from school, wear it as much as you can.”

As hospitalizations rise, the flu vaccine will be key to limiting over taxation on the health care system, Badahman said.

“This year it's very important, because the health care system is taxed to the max,” he said. “We have bed shortages. We need those beds for other problems. So really, if we have influenza coming in with COVID-19, with the colder weather, the health care system is going to be overwhelmed. So I really want everybody to roll up their sleeves and get that influenza vaccine, even if you don't believe in it.”

* * *

TESTING, VACCINES: Nearly 7 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted in the state since the pandemic began, and Gov. JB Pritzker said in a news conference Wednesday, Oct. 21, that the state sent out its first shipment of a new test that will help increase that capacity.

The Abbott Labs BinaxNOW tests are rapid tests recently purchased and distributed to states by the federal government. Illinois has shipped 170,000 to local health departments, Pritzker said.

“The federal government and Abbott have indicated that these shipments will continue on a weekly basis through at least the end of 2020 and will total over 3 million tests for the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said, noting they are manufactured in Illinois, where Abbott has hired more than 2,000 employees in their Gurnee manufacturing plant.

Pritzker said the state is “piloting their usage in several different settings in order to gather more data about their accuracy and sensitivity, and then adjusting our plan to achieve the maximum impact.”

Pritzker said local health departments can choose to distribute their tests where needed locally, including for schools, to first responders, at federally-qualified health centers, and to homeless service organizations.

Pritzker and Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ezike also gave an update on the state’s plan for distributing a vaccine, although there is still no telling when one will be available and at what quantities.

“Let me be clear: Illinois will not distribute a vaccine until we have one that is proven safe and effective,” Pritzker said. “We have a highly qualified team of experts from the private and public sectors teamed up to evaluate the public data and process when the vaccine data is made available over the coming weeks or months. And I'll make sure that you can hear from them when the time comes.”

Illinois’ plan “is designed to provide an equitable distribution across the state with priority access going to our most vulnerable populations,” Pritzker said, noting the vaccine would be free. It would first be targeted to frontline health care workers when available.

In order to achieve herd immunity, Ezike said, about 80 percent of Illinoisans would have to be vaccinates, although she said the vaccine will not be mandated.

* * *

EARLY VOTING: Amid a new surge in COVID-19 cases, voters in Illinois and across the nation are shattering records for early voting.

As of Friday,Oct. 23, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections, more than 1.8 million voters had already cast their ballots for the Nov. 3 general election. Nationally, the U.S. Elections Project at the University of Florida estimates that 50 million Americans have already voted.

During the pandemic-shortened legislative session in May, Illinois lawmakers passed a bill requiring local election officials to send out mail ballot request forms to nearly every voter in Illinois. More than 2.3 million Illinois voters returned those forms, according to state election officials, and as of Friday, with 11 days remaining before the election, slightly more than 1 million, or 45 percent, had returned those ballots.

The new law, which applies to only the 2020 election, also allowed voting jurisdictions to provide secure drop boxes so voters could turn in their ballots personally rather than relying on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver them.

According to information from the website Ballotpedia, the most common reason mail ballots get rejected is that they don’t arrive on time. Other common reasons include the voter failing to sign the envelope or the voter’s signature doesn’t match the signature on file in their voter registration records.

In Illinois, the new law requires that the each election jurisdiction create panels of three election judges consisting of no more than two from the same party to process vote-by-mail ballots. That’s an increase from one election judge under previous laws.

A spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Elections told Capitol News Illinois in an email earlier this month that election authorities keep track of party affiliation in their poll worker recruitment efforts in order to keep proper staffing at polling places and fulfill such requirements.

Per the new law, all three judges on the panel must reject a ballot for it not to be tabulated.

In Illinois, according to the website, nearly 6,000 mail ballots, or 1.1 percent of the total, were rejected in the 2016 election. That rose to 2.2 percent in the 2018 election.

* * *

DCFS YOUTHCARE: On Sept. 1, an estimated 19,000 children in state care were shifted to a managed care health system within the state’s Medicaid program.

And while Marc Smith, acting director of the Department of Children and Family Services, declared the transition a “great success” at a Thursday, Oct. 22 committee hearing, outside observers say a large number of children still are not getting the care they need.

The state is responsible for providing health care to children in foster care as well as those who have been adopted out of foster care or who have aged out of the system but are still younger than 21.

Those who have aged out of foster care were shifted to the new managed care system, known as YouthCare, in February. All other children in state care moved into the new system Sept. 1.

Under managed care, a private insurance company, in this case Centene Corporation, is in charge of putting together a network of health care providers and coordinating all of the health care that those people receive.

Illinois has used a managed care system for most other Medicaid patients for several years. But the transition of current and former foster children into that kind of system took much longer because those are typically children who have been victims of severe abuse or neglect.

Shawnte Alexander, vice president of child welfare programs at Centene, said YouthCare now has a provider network more than three times that of the previous network. In addition, she said, it offers a team of care coordinators who work with families to find the providers they need, including specialists, relieving those parents of the burden of navigating a complex health care system.

But Danielle Gomez of the Cook County Public Guardian’s office, an agency that acts as attorneys for abused and neglected children, provided a much different picture of the managed care system.

“I'm happy to hear that there are some positive stories. I think that's great,” she said. “But those stories are not happening statewide and that level of service is not available to every child who is enrolled in YouthCare yet.”

The panel also heard from a number of individual foster parents about their experiences with YouthCare. Most gave it generally favorable reviews, although some said they’ve had difficulty finding specialists near their homes.

* * *

CARES ACT SPENDING: Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday, Oct. 21, renewed his call for more federal aid for struggling state and local governments as well as small businesses, but talks in Washington may be stalled until after Election Day.

Pritzker was speaking to reporters after touring the DLV Printing plant in Chicago, one of roughly 2,800 firms in Illinois that took part in the first round of the state’s Business Interruption Grants, or BIG program, which provides aid to businesses to offset expenses or losses related to COVID-19.

That program is funded with money from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES Act, which Congress approved in March, shortly after the pandemic hit the United States.

The state of Illinois received roughly $3.5 billion in CARES Act money to pay for expenses related to its COVID-19 response. According to information on the Illinois Comptroller’s website, however, the state has already spent more than half of that money, a little over $1.8 billion.

The largest share of that money, roughly $557 million, has been spent by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, much of it for things like medical supplies and testing equipment. Another $412 million has been spent by the State Board of Education for school meal programs throughout the state, while another $183 million has gone through the Department of Healthcare and Family Services largely for health care costs.

The CARES Act also provided another $1.4 billion in aid that went directly to large cities and counties with populations over 500,000 as well as $250 million that the state is disbursing in the form of grants to smaller local governments.

Under federal rules, however, CARES Act money may only be used for certain direct pandemic-related expenses. But since the pandemic hit, state and local governments throughout the country, including Illinois, have seen steep drops in revenue as businesses were ordered to close or scale back operations, unemployment skyrocketed, and the travel and tourism industry ground to a virtual halt.

In recent days, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has been negotiating with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on a second relief bill and President Trump has signaled his support for one. But national news outlets including the New York Times and Washington Post reported Wednesday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has urged the White House not to strike a deal with Democrats before Election Day.

* * *

BROADBAND GRANTS: State officials on Monday, Oct. 19, announced the opening of a second round of grant opportunities for businesses and organizations to expand access to broadband internet service in underserved communities.

Speaking at a news conference in Staunton, about 40 miles northeast of St. Louis, Gov. JB Pritzker said the program will help close a digital divide that existed long before the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many people to start working from home and students to attend classes remotely.

Funding for the grants comes from the $400 million Connect Illinois program, which was part of the bipartisan $45 billion capital improvements program known as Rebuild Illinois that lawmakers approved in 2019.

In addition to that money, Pritzker said, lawmakers also dedicated $20 million in state funds to the Illinois Century Network, which provides secure broadband connections to K-12 schools and higher education institutions. And the state is using a portion of its federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES Act funding to address inequities in digital access for students.

Pritzker said the goal of those initiatives is to have universal access to broadband service in Illinois by 2024.

Michael Negron, assistant director of the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, said grants are available for four types of projects: expanding access to broadband services; projects that drive innovation in areas such as telehealth; improving connectivity in urban areas; and investments that improve equity in broadband access in disadvantaged communities.

To be eligible for grants in the first three categories, applicants must put up at least 50 percent of the cost in the form of nonstate matching funds. But for projects to improve equity in disadvantaged communities, Pritzker said, the state is relaxing that requirement.

Eligible applicants include internet service providers, rural cooperatives, nonprofits and local governments. Grants are available in amounts up to $5 million per project. Subsequent rounds will follow over the course of the next several years.

The application period is open from Nov. 1 through March 1. More information about applying for the grants is available on DCEO’s website.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

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