Thread by @BauerJournalism

Gov. JB Pritzker has his daily coronavirus update at 2:30 p.m.

I'll live tweet. Follow for updates and let me know if you have questions.

Today's numbers: blockclubchicago.org/2020/10/23/cor…

Pritzker: "Regions under tighter mitigations sometimes take more than a week to see the numbers" level out or come down. But it comes down quicker when people follow the rules.

Pritzker: "Every day of the last 8 months we've gotten better at tracking and monitoring this disease through more and more testing ... ."

Pritzker: We test 3.5 times as much as the average state and we're third in the nation in daily testing and No. 1 in the Midwest.

Pritzker: "Mobile testing has allowed us to evolve where and how often we need to offer testing in a certain area and increases the availability of free testing as needed."

Pritzker: "Our strong testing regimen is just one important tool in our toolbox, and we didn't have that toolbox prepared when this pandemic first hit. No one did. And there's others we've deployed that we'll talk more about next week."

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, head of the Illinois Department of Public Health: She's "feeling it and living it myself. I don't get to live in some COVID-free bubble exempt from" the pain and tragedy of the pandemic. "So I understand how pandemic fatigue is striking everyone. It's real."

Ezike: "This new virus has caused this horrible situation; and, although people want to refute the number of cases, we are seeing the number of people with COVID-19 continue to increase. We are seeing the number of individuals in the hospital because of COVID-19 increase. ...

"We are seeing the number of lives lost continue to increase. And if you're tired of hearing it from me, please just ask one of your local physicians in the area."

Ezike: 31 deaths; 9,418 total.
3,874 cases; 364,033 total.

Ezike is weeping. She turns away.

Ezike: "I'm sorry." She was crying after she noted these people who have died won't be with their families for the holidays.

Ezike: "My message to you is to stay strong."

Ezike: "This is a difficult race when you can't actually see the endpoint, and I'm sorry that's the message I have for you. Nevertheless, I'm asking you to fight the fatigue. Fight the urge to give up social distancing."

Ezike: "Fight to have safe, healthy environments in which we can work so that businesses can remain open, so that our economies can start to thrive away."

Ezike: "This does mean wearing your mask anytime you're around people. This means reconsidering that large gathering, that large social event. ... Think about connecting with friends and family virtually."

Ezike: When we bring the spread down, kids can go to school safely, people can go to work safely and family events can be held happily instead of being super-spreader events.

Ezike: Think about the people you can unknowingly infect who might not be as fortunate to have the immune system you do.

Ezike: You can be asymptomatic and shed the virus for 7-8 days, infecting others. They can be hospitalized or face "even worse without understanding where or how they contracted this."

Pritzker: "Dr. Ezike is Superwoman. Since the very beginning of this coronavirus, she has had the weight of the public health of the people on the state of Illinois on her shoulders. She has worked nonstop seven days a week, 24 hours a day. There is not a moment she doesn't ...

"take a phone call in the middle of the night, middle of the day, take a meeting; whatever she needs to do. The people of the state of Illinois are her patients, and you can imagine she cares so deeply about her patients. And I'll also say hrere is a tremendous amount of ...

"pressure and burden when, in addition to all that, she is subject to verbal attack, to protesters showing up at her home. And people have a right to do that, but people should take into consideration that this is a very difficult she has. That she is doing it in a way we ...

"should all be proud of."

Pritzker: After a few warnings and perhaps a dispersal order, there is the potential for people to be cited. Police will also check on locations that may not be following the rules.

Pritzker: "I understand how difficult it is, I do. Many small businesses have their entire livelihoods at risk and the potential for the closure of their business permanently as a result of this virus."

Pritzker: "We've fighting to get these resources to small businesses in Illinois. And I'll continue that fight." The feds "can't seem to get together to get that done. 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. So I would ask people to try to live by the rules that we've set. Wear your mask. The truth is if everybody will wear their masks, we can get our businesses back open much quicker."

Amy Jacobson says people are wearing masks. Pritzker: "That's not true, Amy. Masks work. There are a lot of people not wearing their masks. And a lot of people having private events at their home" not wearing masks.

Pritzker: "There are an awful lot of people not wearing masks; and right here in Chicago that's true as well. But it's especially true in some other areas."

Pritzker: "We are getting through this because, eventually, there will be an effective treatment or a vaccine. ... I think it will be early next year, I hope; I don't know. But we've got to be able to survive until then. We've got to keep people safe," ...

and particularly those who are most vulnerable.

Ezike: "I think it's sad to see the numbers going up again. People have worked very hard to get us through the first phase, and as I heard from some health care executives yesterday, as we see the numbers go up in the hospital, people are bringing more beds, trying to prepare...

"and these staff that went through all that pain to try to save as many people as they can are seeing history repeat itself. So if you're talking about COVID fatigue from having to keep wearing a mask, think about the COVID fatigue [fro health care workers] who are going to ...

"have to go through this whole episode again" trying to save people's lives because people won't take safety measures.

Ezike: "I'm desperate to find the message that will work. ... The virus has caused this and instead of pitting one group against another, we need to get that and fight against the virus. And we can do that. We have some tools to do that. ... We have a mask. And we're asking ...

"people to use it. And I don't know what else I can say."

Ezike: In most cases of COVID, the person who has it cannot tell you exactly who they got it from. "In the absence of a documented outbreak, all those individuals that did contract the virus, the way that you look at where they may have gotten it from" is looking at the ...

timeframe when they could have been exposed and seeing where they could have been. Those are "exposure sites" where they could have gotten the virus. "Time after time, bars and restaurants come up as the No. 2 or No. 3 place that all those cases frequented."

Pritzker: "There are literally a dozen studies, many, many articles about bars and restaurants being exposure sites ... ."

Pritzker: "We are not considering a statewide stay at home order. ... We created the regions and the methodology for resurgence mitigations precisely so we could avoid statewide stay at home orders. We've learned an awful lot since March so we're looking to stay to the plan ...."

Pritzker: "It is true that just closing public spaces doesn't solve the problems, but we are, we're looking at everything we think is a high level of risk and trying to address it with some mitigation if we think it's high-level risk. We're learning things about the virus ...

"still, even today; so are the epidemiologists around the world. ... But there's nothing more effective, I'm just gonna say it again, than everybody wearing a mask and keeping 6 feet of distance. ... It is the most effective thing that we can do. If we would all just take that...

"responsibility and do it, we could bring [the surge] down really rapidly."

Ezike: "An indoor tent is the same as indoor dining. For the outdoor dining, we expect there's gonna be some apparatus ... that should only have two sides. If it has four sides, you are essentially indoors. So that's that."

Ezike: "I would say that maybe the measures, the mitigation measures that are in place, might be working. Or many people are not going there [to casinos]." But if they saw consistent info about exposures happening in casinos, they'd reconsider rules for them.

Pritzker: "There are staff, a lot of staff, that work at congregate care facilities, longterm care facilities, nursing homes, they are coming in and out of the facilities ... . We've had to limit the visitation of people to longterm facilities by family members, by friends and...

"so on. It's limited not to just outdoor visiting. And for a long time, it was limited, literally, we couldn't let anybody in or out because we didn't want it to spread — it spreads like wildfire sometimes .. .."

Press conference over.

STORY: blockclubchicago.org/2020/10/23/cor…