Thread by @GovPritzker

I want to discuss the actions I’ve taken related to protecting our more vulnerable populations, specifically focusing on the black community who has suffered vastly disproportionate impacts of #COVID19.

Generations of systemic disadvantages in health care delivery and access in communities of color and Black communities in particular are now amplified in this #COVID19 crisis – in Chicago, suburban Cook County, greater St. Louis, in cities & towns across IL and across the nation.

First, we need more ubiquitous testing.

In Chicago, four health centers on the South & West Sides will take 400 tests per day to @LurieChildrens.

In Metro East, three locations of the Southern Ill. Healthcare Foundation system will take 470 tests per day to Anderson Hospital.

Our new state-run South Suburban drive-thru testing center will open early next week in the Markham-Harvey area.

We’ll be taking hundreds of specimens per day, with test results coming back to patients much faster than the federally-contracted labs.

Testing is crucial, but we also need to talk about what happens after a person gets a test – or doesn’t get a test but has symptoms, or has a known exposure to #COVID19.

How does that person protect themselves? What about their family members, their roommates, their loved ones?

Through Illinois’ early crisis preparations, the state required each local jurisdiction to prepare an alternate housing plan to help residents quarantine in a safe space and for first responders.

We've prepared up to 2,000 hotel rooms across Illinois to support that response.

We have rooms in Springfield, Rockford, Metro East, Quad Cities, Schaumburg, Mt. Vernon, Peoria, Carbondale, Quincy, Marion, Macomb, Champaign & the collar counties ready to be activated by next week based on county needs. We're also supporting Chicago & Cook County's efforts.

These rooms extend to our first responder communities as well. Residents will be able to access these resources through their local health departments, who play a vital role in assisting the state with our COVID-19 response.

We’ve utilized the full weight of @IDPH’s clinical and technical capacity to bolster our local health departments’ COVID response, and we are now directing a combined $6.8 million dollars to help mitigate every health department’s financial stress during this crisis.

These hotel rooms are in addition to the alternate care capacity at McCormick Place, Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park, Metro South Hospital in Blue Island, Sherman Hospital in Elgin, and Vibra Hospital in Springfield.

Additionally, I’m pleased that the federal government has granted our request to use the VA hospital system to support COVID-19 patients as medically necessary.

In sum, we are making sure that our plans reflect equity in access, testing and treatment – and we are asking the same of health care providers across the state.

It is essential that health care institutions operate to fulfill their obligations to render health care in an ethical and non-discriminatory manner.

This is a crisis and providers may have to operate beyond their normal capacity and allocate limited health care resources.

No one life is any more important than another.

Today we issued guidance that vulnerable and historically marginalized communities must receive equitable care, so that no person of color or person with disabilities suffers a disparate outcome due to a legacy of discrimination.

It’s in moments of crisis that we owe each other even greater expressions of humanity.