Thread by @BauerJournalism

Gov. JB Pritzker has his daily coronavirus briefing at 2:30 p.m. I'll live tweet it. Follow for updates and let me know if you have questions.

Our latest story: blockclubchicago.org/2020/04/30/cor…

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, head of the Illinois Department of Public Health, speaking. "Testing is one of the keys to opening the state," which is why they're so focused on it.
"Testing leads to quick identification of cases, quick treatment for those people who are identified as ...

"positive and immediate isolation of individuals that will help prevent spread."
It also helps the state do targeted interventions and learn about how the virus is spreading and to whom. "Knowing who is infected is critically important, which is why we are asking everyone who ...

"is tested to make sure they fill out the information on the form completely." The form asks your age, race, county of residence, recovery and exposure info, etc. "Gathering this information helps inform our strategy ... it helps us prevent spread and provide support and ...

"assistance to communities who are identified as needing it most."

Ezike: 2,563 new cases today. Total is 52,918.
141 people died in the last day. Total is 2,355 lives lost.

269,867 tests done with 13,200 being performed in the last day

Ezike: "We all must continue to stay home as much as we can, to wear masks and social distance if we do have to go out and to wash our hands frequently."

Pritzker: "Testing, tracing and PPE are key to our ability to reopen our economy and keep people safe. Thats why you've heard me talk so much about them so often. Today, I want to focus on testing, and I'm proud to be joined by Jose Sanchez, the president and CEO of Norwegian ...

"American Hospital, who's been a wonderful partner in expanding testing access in some of our most impacted communities."

Last Friday, Illinois had just hit 10,000 tests per day. It's passed that goal every day since.

Pritzker: US doesn't produce enough raw materials for all the testing that needs to be done now and feds have given only "limited assistance."

Pritzker: "Our procurement teams have been hard at work competing for this raw materials against every nation and every state in the open market. And so far, we're succeeding."

Pritzker: As of yesterday, the White House has promised Illinois 620,000 individual swabs and 465,000 vials of VTM, which will be delivered beginning in the first week of May. "... We've made it a priority to partner directly with organizations to test people in many ...

"communities across the state. ... We've increased the number of public testing sites to 177 across the state. That's up from 112 sites last Friday. Tests at these locations are entirely free and they're available in every region of the state."

Pritzker: There are 19 new sites in the Rockford Region, 9 in the Peoria region, 8 sites in the Springfield region, 5 sites in the Edwardsville region, 33 sites in the Marion region, 10 sites in the Champaign region and 41 sites in Chicago, 22 in southwest suburbs, 8 in west ...

suburbs, 11 sites in the northwest suburbs and 11 sites in north suburbs.

Pritzker: They're adding two drive-thru testing sites to Waukegan and East St. Louis. They open next week.

Pritzker: "My team and I continue to consult with health experts and communities to determine additional drive-thru locations across the state, and I look forward t sharing with you our future updates on this work as soon as we have those sites ready to go."

Pritzker: "... Testing is vital to our efforts to reduce social restrictions, get our economy going and to protect our residents. With a modified stay at home order beginning tomorrow, I want to briefly touch on the changes that continue those efforts to move toward opening ...

"up, giving Illinoisans more flexibility where it is safe to do so."
-Starting tomorrow, retail stores can reopen for pickup/delivery
-Greenhouses and garden centers can reopen with social distancing
-Many state parks and golf courses can open with social distancing

-Elective surgeries can be scheduled for surgical centers and hospitals
-"As we open things up and make progress, tomorrow will be the first day where adults and any children over the age 2 and anyone medically able to tolerate a face covering will be required to wear one in ...

"any public place where they can't maintain a 6-foot distance."

Sanchez: "Our Humboldt Park community is rich in cultural diversity but struggles with poverty, substance use disorders, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, lack of some basic needs. Additionally, crowded housing is common, more than twice as likely compared to other ...

"neighborhoods in our city here. Norwegian American Hospital continues to play a vital role not only in COVID-19. We are proud to have launched drive-thru testing this week to address the serious health inequities we have seen in our community."

Sanchez: "We have received overwhelming response and a number of requests for testing, and we are pleased to lead these efforts in Humboldt Park on the West Side of our city. By the end of this week, we will have completed hundreds of tests. Due to the health inequities, it ...

"is critical we identify the individuals that have COVID-19 early so we can provide interventions and prevent the spread of virus in our underserved communities. Our Latino and African American community have significant co-morbidities such as diabetes, cancer, ...

"heart disease, a lack of basic needs. These put them most at risk of dying. To date, over 80% of those we have tested are Latino and African American, and half have tested positive. We want to continue to address these serious health needs and expand our testing capacity."

Pritzker on a church's lawsuit over stay at home order: Many pastors and faith leaders have been partners of the state. "These are difficult times for parishioners and for those of us who worship to not be able to access, sometimes in person, your faith leader, especially as ...

"anxiety has come over people. Coronavirus is a very serious infection that's in the air, it's around us. It's caused people to need that kind of council. Most faith leaders have found new ways to connect with their parishioners ... . I would encourage people to continue to do...

"that. I would just urge the faith leaders, y'know, who are concerned about the length of this to just put the health and safety of their congregants first. ... We're still climbing this ladder of hospitalizations and ICU beds being filled. And until we get to the other side, ...

"even according to President's Trump's plan, we can't begin to open up until we have 14 days of" those numbers going down.
"We've asked everybody to do the right thing, and as I say, parishioners and their pastors have done the right thing across the state. This person, it's a...

"bit of an outlier. But everybody has the right to sue."

Pritzker: "I would point people to the fact that people are still getting infected. More and more people are ending up in the hospital and more and more people are dying. We had 141 people die today, and not all of them were in Cook County or Chicago. Some of them were in ...

"downstate Illinois."

Pritzker: "What I'm doubling down on is the fact all the people who live in those counties are being put in harm's way by those who are putting gatherings together, of any sort" that could lead to people being infected.

Pritzker: "We know there are many, many people out there who are pre-syptomatic, asymptomatic, and yet have coronavirus. If you put one of those people in a room full of parishioners, you run the risk you're gonna get a kind of exponential run of this disease, this infection, ...

"rather, through a crowd you love and care for."

Pritzker: "No one's gonna run in and break up a gathering of churchgoers in that moment, but I will tell you there are consequences, of course. ... We've been looking to people to do the right thing, and they should do the right thing." He says the parishioners should ask ...

their faith leaders not to hold those services or to hold them online.

Pritzker: "If Amy had read the executive order, she would see the Legislature has the ability to meet. It is an essential organization under the executive order."

Pritzker: "This is something the legislators themselves will have to work out."

Pritzker on people still having trouble with getting unemployment: "Our online capacity has improved measurably. There's no doubt the system started out unprepared for this unprecedented level of filings. But at this point, I must say, the ability to connect online is ...

"available to everyone. If they're having trouble for some reason ... they may need to call in. We've expanded the number of people available to take the calls. There's no doubt there's also people who no longer file for unemployment, either because they filed a fraudulent ...

"form earlier or there's challenges to the veracity of certain forms they've filed. There's a lot of reason someone might not be able to get through. But I will say the systems themselves are operating reasonably well" given they were 10 years old.

Pritzker: "There are many more people answering phones today than there were when this whole process started. ... That department has, over many years, not been funded particularly well. The systems haven't been upgraded. So it sort of started in this difficult situation." But...

they've drawn upon everyone to answer these. "It's very difficult, I must say. Many of them are working overtime, weekends, and so on."

Pritzker: IDES employees have been working at home. They have an "offshoot" for people who need answers to questions that don't require federal training.

Pritzker: "I absolutely encourage people to continue to connect with KeyBank when they're having trouble with the cards because they're issued by KeyBank and IDES is attempting to get them to work out all the glitches" and get people's questions answered.

Pritzker: "... if the Legislature wants to take this up and pressure the federal government to make changes, that's within their purview."

Pritzker: "It is true that a county, or even a local government, can have more stringent rules than even the state has imposed. And that is what's been going on in Indiana and some other sates." Chicago has more stringent rules, too.

Pritzker: "There's always gonna be opportunities for people to avoid the rules and to gather in large groups. What we've told people ... people need to use the common sense that Mother Nature, God gave them to not gather in those places, to wear masks, keep 6-foot distancing, ...

"to not participate in activities that will put themselves and, very importantly, their families when they come back from those places in danger."

Pritzker: "What we've tried to do is to follow the science, and I would encourage those who are thinking of breaking the rules to follow the science, too. What we know, what we know, is that people put themselves at risk when they don't wear masks, when they gather in large ...

"groups. We know that people who are going from place to place and who are asymptomatic ... are putting other people at risk. We know that in Illinois we've seen the number of infections" that come from one person who's infected go down over time. "That's no an accident. That ...

"doesn't help by nature it went down. It went down because people stayed at home. It's because people are following the social distancing rules."
"Unfortunately, Rockford is a hot spot in the case. Winnebago County has quite a number of infections. It's something we're ...

"watching very closely. And it's why people in that county and the surrounding areas need to be extremely careful."

Pritzker: He spoke with 3 of 5 Republican congressmen who had questions about stay at home. "I don't disagree with them that different areas of the state require different rules during this time. That's why we made some changes. You see in this executive order that goes into ...

"effect tomorrow the state parks are not in Cook County and Chicago, right? The idea that people can get elective surgeries is much more available in areas outside the collar counties and Cook County because more infections exist just by the numbers ... . Many of the things ...

"we've opened up just in this executive order that's only in effect for a month here is an indication, indeed, ... that it's different from one area to another. And we'll be talking about that as we put forward plans for reopening."

Pritzker says, again, it's the Legislature that would need to lift the ban on rent control. "I want to make sure people can pay the rent and that they're not being pushed out from gentrification in their communities."

Pritzker: "I think it's a good idea ... . I would say that that's something the mayor of the city of Chicago should lead. We want to make sure that people are safe taking mass transit and figuring out what the right schedule for cleaning is. I know they're doing some of that ...

"now ... and I would encourage them to look at that." More and more people will take mass transit as things open and they need to know they're safe.

Ezike: "We've gone through many evolutions of the testing criteria." At first, you needed to have had contact with someone from Wuhan. "As we have relaxed the criteria, ... we're still targeting our high-risk individuals, people who are on the front lines, if you will ... . "

Ezike on uncounted deaths: "We do see that, compared to 2018 and 2019, the deaths that we've had from the period of March to April 15 are significantly higher for this 2020 time. When we take out the number of deaths that we know are COVID-related, we still have additional ...

"deaths that we can't account for. One position could be that there are additional deaths that we have missed, but, again, we don't have the details on all of the deaths" and it will take several months to figure that out.

Pritzker: "The numbers need to significantly increase before we can actually test many more people. What we can do, however, is make sure that, as we reopen these facilities, speaking of I think manufacturing was on that list, that we're keeping people 6 feet apart ...

"everyone should be wearing a mask. There are various rules that we're working with IDPH on" to make sure businesses can reopen safely.

Pritzker on helping restaurants: "We can pressure the feds for more funding, and we are. ... We want to stand up a larger state program to support these small businesses. Most restaurants ... many of them have not been able to access that federal money, that PPP money ... ."

"At the state level, we provide grants from the department of commerce and economic opportunity, we took whatever money we had available to do that and now we'd like to be able to provide more." That'll be dependent on federal support from the state and working with the ...

Legislature to create a larger program.

Pritzker: The Airbridge is bringing over PPE, which is handed over to existing distributors of medical supplies, who have an "existing set of customers, some of whom are in Illinois, some of whom are not in Illinois." The businesses distribute the goods "as they see fit."

Pritzker: "The Airbridge really does not supply the state or local governments."

Pritzker: The IDOC director has looked at only nonviolent offenders and seeing if they can release people early on good time.

Pritzker: "We're staying the course here of making sure we're keeping an eye on the healthy and safety of every Illinoisan, wherever they live ... . Just because they don't live in Chicago or Cook County or the collar counties does not mean people are not in danger."

Pritzker: Many mayors have sent him plans for the region. He's taking that into account while talking to scientists to create a phase-in plan.

Pritzker: "It could be a T-shirt that's made into a face covering. It doesn't have to be a specific surgical mask or any kind of mask. But something that covers your nose and mouth." You don't have to wear it all times outside. "But if you encounter a crowd, a public space ...

"with a lot of people in it, that's when you need to or are required to put on a face covering. And, of course, going into a grocery store, a pharmacy where you know you're gonna run into a lot of people ... ."

Ezike: "Yes, we are tracking all outbreaks throughout the state. We've had outbreaks at all kinds of facilities," including churches, meat plants, etc. "We, obviously, start with the local health departments are the boots on the ground ... . We are always ready to assist; in ...

"certain instances we have pulled in the CDC ... ."

Press conference over. Story here: blockclubchicago.org/2020/04/30/256…