Gov. Pritzker: 'I'm not willing to sacrifice anyone'
Some 250 new COVID-19 cases lift state total past 1,500, as four new deaths make 16 total
Gov. Pritzker speaks at his daily coronavirus briefing, saying, “I’m not willing to sacrifice anyone” in the pandemic. (Illinois Information Service)
By Ted Cox
As President Trump spoke publicly about restarting the economy next month in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Pritzker maintained that Illinois will hold to his stay-at-home order to minimize the outbreak and prevent any and all deaths possible due to COVID-19.
“I’m not willing to sacrifice anyone,” Pritzker said at his daily COVID-19 briefing at the Thompson Center in Chicago, going on to repeat his admonition, “You can’t have a livelihood without a life.”
Pritzker made the declaration as his administration laid out plans to expand testing for the virus as well as hospital capacity to treat the worst cases, with a dramatic increase in hospitalization expected in the days and weeks ahead.
Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said the state registered 250 new cases Tuesday, pushing the Illinois total to 1,535 statewide in 31 counties. She said four new deaths were attributed to COVID-19, bringing the state total to 16, and her voice cracked as she spoke of family members unable to attend funerals and wakes for those lost.
Speaking in a televised town hall on the outbreak earlier Tuesday, Trump said he wanted the country “opened up and just raring to go by Easter.” Clearly fearing that a tanking economy will doom his reelection, Trump expressed a preference to resume normal activities and suffer the consequences — even as Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, which has about half of the nation’s 50,000 coronavirus cases, warned that hospitals across his state are preparing for an expected peak in patients in two weeks.
Pritzker came down firmly on the side of doing everything possible to curtail the outbreak and save lives. “I don’t think he’s listening to the science,” he said of Trump. “I think the president is not taking into account the true damage that this will do to our country if we see truly millions of people die.”
The governor emphasized that expanded testing was necessary to “understand the scale and severity of the outbreak across Illinois,” adding, “Testing helps determine the actual outreach of COVID-19.” He said the state was currently up to running 2,000 tests a day, up from 50 at the start of the outbreak, and a new test facility at Illinois State University will soon raise the statewide testing capacity to 4,300 a day.
“We need to do more testing,” Pritzker said. He cited the World Health Organization leading the fight against the pandemic in saying, “You cannot fight the fire blindfolded.”
He laid out the dire consequences should the outbreak race through the state unfettered as it previously did in Italy, where the death toll from the disease approached 7,000 Tuesday as the nation registered 743 new deaths. According to the Pritzker administration, the state has 26,000 hospital beds and 2,600 Itensive Care Unit beds, both at just over 50 percent occupied, and 2,200 ventilators, with just over a quarter in use. But the worst-case scenario for the outbreak if Pritzker’s stay-at-home order were halted would see state hospitals at capacity and needing an additional 2,500 non-ICU beds, 837 ICU beds, and 419 ventilators by the end of the month, and only a week later it would need an additional 28,00 non-ICU beds, 9,400 ICU beds, and 4,700 ventilators on top of that.
“That’s untenable,” Pritzker said. “COVID-19’S ability to overwhelm the system could happen here too. We are not immune.
“But again those are worst-case-scenario projections, with no interventions,” he added. “Instead, what we’ve done already in Illinois is put in place a two-pronged approach to make sure a worst-case scenario does not become our reality.”
The first prong, the stay-at-home order and other preventive measures, is already in place, and now the state is working to increase hospital capacity to meet the demand for treatment as cases rise. According to Pritzker, the Illinois National Guard is joining in efforts to reopen shuttered hospitals, which could potentially serve more routine patients and enable existing hospitals to focus on COVID-19.
It’s worth noting that one-day new cases remained in the 250 range for the third straight day Tuesday in Illinois, with 250 being more than Monday’s 236 new cases, but less than the 296 registered Sunday. But even so the state expected a surge in patients requiring hospitalization.
Pritzker said the state had received a commitment from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency to deliver 300 ventilators and 300,000 N95 masks “in the coming days,” but he again called on Trump to use the Defense Protection Act to centralize the U.S. response and streamline getting equipment where needs are greatest, especially as “there is a finite supply of critical resources available around the world right now.”
“We need the full might of the federal government to obtain and allocate things like ventilators,” Pritzker said. “Of all reasons that the federal government exists, this is the most important and the most basic. We are on a wartime footing right now. … Lives depend upon it.”
Pritzker said he would prioritize science over the economy. “I understand how difficult it is to see the economy slow down and watch friends and neighbors laid off from jobs. Those concerns keep me up at night too. But I will say again you can’t have a livelihood without a life. … We can revive our economy. We can’t revive the people who are lost this virus.”
He acknowledged talk in the Trump administration as to “who this nation might be willing to sacrifice to COVID-19 for the sake of our economic interests. Well, in case there’s any doubt in your minds, I’m not willing to sacrifice anyone. There is no life in this state that is more or less precious than any other, no person more or less worthy of saving. … It’s vitally important to me we protect everybody in this state.”
Trump retreated a bit from his suggestion to restart the economy later Tuesday at his daily coronavirus briefing at the White House.
Explaining that 15 of the 16 deaths in Illinois thus far have involved people older than 60, Ezike said, “Let’s do everything we can to prevent as many deaths as possible.”
“Now is not the time to abandon the only measures we know will protect us,” added Dr. Omar Lateef, chief executive officer of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “We believe it’s coming,” he said of the expected surge in patients needing treatment.