New COVID-19 cases double, Chicago shuts down lakefront
Additional 673 coronavirus cases bring state total to 2,538, 26 dead
Chicago’s riverwalk is being shut down, as well as the lakefront and the popular 606 bike and pedestrian trail, in a move to discourage congregation and spread of the coronavirus. (Wikimedia Commons/Gorilla Jones)
By Ted Cox
New Illinois COVID-19 cases more than doubled from one day to the next Thursday, as Chicago moved to shut down its lakefront and other popular outdoor attractions to discourage people from congregating and spreading the coronavirus.
At the daily coronavirus briefing at the Thompson Center in Chicago, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, reported 673 new cases, more than doubling the previous one-day high of 330 set only the day before. That brought the total number of known infections to 2,538 in 37 counties statewide. Seven new deaths brought the Illinois toll to 26.
“We’re in a period of exponential growth,” Ezike said, as the pandemic spreads across the state. On an optimistic note, however, some of the increased numbers are almost certainly due to increased testing, and Ezike added, “They’re slightly under predictions, which is good.”
Given those figures, Illinoisans wouldn’t figure to need to be told to stay home and do everything possible to slow the spread of the disease. But after springlike weather in Chicago drove people into the streets and out to the Lake Michigan shore on Wednesday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot declared the lakefront closed to the public Thursday, along with the Riverwalk along the Chicago River and the popular 606 bike and pedestrian trail, which runs along a former railroad bed on the city’s North Side. She also banned all contact sports, including soccer and pickup basketball games.
Both Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker spoke in passionate terms Thursday in urging citizens in Chicago and across the state to observe the stay-at-home order imposed last weekend.
“Folks, we can’t mess around with this one second longer,” Lightfoot said in a news conference at Chicago City Hall. Warning that 40,000 Chicagoans could need to be hospitalized in the coming weeks if the disease proceeds unfettered, as it has in Italy, she declared, “That number will will break our health-care system.” Emphasizing “the critical importance of staying home,” Lightfoot unveiled the Stay Home, Save Lives campaign to get citizens to comply.
“You simply cannot congregate. You must avoid crowds,” Lightfoot said. “We’re not saying you can’t exercise. We’re saying you cannot congregate.”
Interim Chicago Police Supt. Charlie Beck said police will warn violators to disperse, and if necessary issue a ticket or even make an arrest. “We will enforce this vigorously,” he said. “We will do it to save your life.”
Pritzker was just as vigorous in his language at the daily briefing. Pointing out that other areas of the state also saw people congregating against the restrictions in his stay-at-home order to stay 6 feet apart and not gather in groups of 10 or more, Pritzker said, “Throwing all caution to the wind in the midst of a deadly pandemic is not acceptable. … Right now, hosting a party, crowding down by the lake, playing a pickup basketball game in a public park — if you’re doing these things you are spitting in the face of the doctors and nurses and first responders who are risking everything so that you can survive.”
He added, “I don’t tell you all this just to scare you. I tell you this to save your life.”
Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said the city had confirmed 949 cases and “that number is going to go up.” She added that the city was looking into using thousands of vacant hotel rooms to accommodate patients, as well as potentially using the massive McCormick Place Lakefront East convention center to place thousands more beds for treatment.
Pritzker said the state was also doing everything possible to minimize the economic fallout, as the nation reported a record 3.3 million new unemployment claims last week — almost five times the previous one-week high set during the Reagan recession in 1982 — and the state registered 134,000 claims so far this month, with Pritzker saying that an improved Illinois Department of Employment Security website had enabled 17,000 more to successfully file for unemployment just Thursday before 2 p.m.
According to the governor, as of a week ago, one in five U.S. households is dealing with reduced hours or a layoff, while one in four has dropped below $50,000 in annual income.
On that note, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin attended the daily briefing Thursday to tout the $2.2 trillion rescue package the Senate passed late Wednesday night, expected to be passed by the House of Representatives on Friday. “Something miraculous has happened in Washington,” he said. “We’ve actually done something — on a timely basis.” Pointing out that the package passed by a unanimous 96-0 vote in the Senate, he said, “That tells you I believe that we not only understand the gravity of this challenge, but the importance that we move quickly and put politics aside when it comes to the well-being of the people we represent and the future of our nation.”
Durbin said the key element of the package is “a Marshall Plan for hospitals,” delivering $120 billion to those on the front lines in fighting the disease.
Pritzker also praised the newly organized Illinois COVID-19 Response Fund, a statewide organization intended to funnel money to nonprofits and led by his older sister, former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. She said the group had already raised almost $23 million that will be distributed to nonprofits across the state to address “basic needs for all Illinoisans.”
Illinois Department of Human Services Secretary Grace Hou said it would complement her agency and help “fill the gaps” in the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, as local nonprofits can move “more quickly and more directly” to get funding where it needs to go.
The Pritzkers said they’d welcome any contribution to the fund through its website, and the governor said he and his wife, M.K., had already personally contributed $2 million, along with another $2 million from his foundation.
The governor also applauded President Trump for formally issuing a Federal Emergency Disaster Declaration for Illinois as it combats COVID-19, but he was less charitable about the rest of the president’s response to the pandemic. “All I can say is that I’m concerned about the desire of the president to ignore potentially the science, to try to do something I know he has a desire to do,” reopening the economy as soon as possible. “People will die. People will get sick. We need to make sure we’re operating on the same playbook together to save people’s lives.”
Pritzer repeated his persistent call for Trump to use the Defense Protection Act to centralize the acquisition of personal protective equipment, or PPE, for those on the front lines and keep states from having to compete against each other, foreign countries, and the federal government for critical medical supplies and devices. “He’s not doing everything he can do,” Pritzker said. “Nothing’s been enacted.”
Pritzker offered high praise for Bonnie Tracy, a Chicago grandmother who posted a video to Facebook explaining how she got her “South Side Polish dander up” in response to someone who suggested the coronavirus outbreak was a hoax at a supermarket.
“There are still people out there who don’t believe this is real,” Pritzker said. “The point is they should see what’s happening around, and look at the numbers, and they will see that Bonnie is right. And that the people who are social distancing and managing that are right.”