Pritzker rips 'profound failure of our nat'l gov't'

Guv tries to lighten mood with ‘All in Illinois’ campaign as 16 deaths bring state toll to 157

Gov. Pritzker urges state residents to go “all in for Illinois” at his daily coronavirus briefing. (Illinois Information Service)

By Ted Cox

Gov. Pritzker on Thursday ripped what he called “the profound failure of our national government” to provide leadership in urging people to stay home and curtail the spread of COVID-19.

“I take no pride in being earlier than others” in imposing a stay-at-home order, Pritzker said at his daily coronavirus briefing at the Thompson Center in Chicago. “But I am honestly upset about the lack of early action on a national basis. This will go down in history as a profound failure of our national government.”

Pritzker made the comments as Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike announced 715 new COVID-19 cases and 16 new deaths, bringing the state totals to 7,695 infections and 157 lost lives. Nationally, the United States topped 5,700 deaths Thursday as it approached 250,000 cases, and globally infections topped 1 million with the death toll estimated at more than 50,000.

Having applied the lash to the Trump administration, Pritzker tried to entice Illinoisans to stay home by unveiling a lighthearted new promotional campaign called “All in Illinois.” It will provide an online conduit for public-service announcements, campaign posters, and other materials delivered to residents, while also allowing them to post their own messages in response.

Illinois native Jane Lynch, former star of the Fox TV series “Glee,” is among those providing public-service announcements for All in Illinois. (All in Illinois)

“Our strongest weapon against COVID-19 is you,” he said directly to citizens. “Today I’m asking all of us, all of you, to stay in and be all in for Illinois — all in for our neighbors, all in for our grandparents, all in for cancer survivors and those who are immuno-compromised, all in to protect essential workers like grocery and drugstore employees and food-delivery workers, all in for our heroic doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists, social workers, EMTs, pharmacists, ER technicians, registration staff, sanitation services, and the hospital food-service workers who keep our patients fed. Join us and take the pledge. Pledge your commitment to go all in for Illinois.”

Pritzker called it “a fun way I think for everybody to feel camaraderie with one another, to feel as if we are all in this together in Illinois.”

On a more active note in actually combatting the coronavirus pandemic, Pritzker laid out the progress being made in “alternative-care facilities,” including McCormick Place in Chicago and the previously closed Advocate Sherman Hospital in Elgin and MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island — all of which are being equipped with beds to treat patients. Pritzker emphasized they’re “meant to support, not replace” existing hospitals, but they’re expected to help keep the health system from being overloaded with COVID-19 patients. McCormick Place will have 3,000 beds, Sherman and MetroSouth a total of 500 more, and Pritzker announced the recently closed Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park will also be reopened, with 230 beds. The governor added that they expected to announce another site in central Illinois in the coming weeks as the state deals with the expected surge in infections requiring hospitalization.

Pritzker applauded the work being done to convert McCormick Place Lakeside Center into a de facto hospital. “I got a sneak peek of the work that’s being done there,” he said. “They’re building out this amazing facility,” with the first 500 beds going in this week. He praised carpenters, union workers, Illinois National Guard troops, and others involved in the conversion. “It is going to be completed, and that is amazing to me. I didn’t know you could make something that big build something out like that in five days.

“We’re adding capacity at existing hospitals along with the capacity that we’re adding at these alternate-care facilities so that we can treat more patients,” he added. “Because of the lack of immunity in our population, there’s a greater risk of overwhelming our medical systems if too many people get sick all at once.

“We also must slow the spread of the virus,” Pritzker said. “If we don’t, there could never be enough hospital capacity to treat all of those who would become ill. Our job, all of us in Illinois, is both to keep our health systems operating within capacity and to keep our residents, especially our older and immuno-compromised residents, safe.”

Ezike said that 85 percent of state coronavirus deaths have invoked people 60 and older, “but that doesn't mean that it’s a death sentence.” Many older patients with COVID-19 recover, while some younger patients do not. “No age is immune to contracting the virus,” she added.

Because of its high infection rate, it’s produced clusters in essential businesses, and Ezike urged those businesses that remain open to monitor employees for symptoms and to check their temperatures daily.

Pritzker said his administration is making sure that personal protective equipment — also known as PPE — is distributed across the state. “As soon as we get whatever we get, we are shipping it out to various places,” he said, “downstate Illinois, southern Illinois, central Illinois, northwestern Illinois — Rockford and surrounding counties — are all getting PPE shipments.”

He pleaded for patience and persistence in those who have to file for unemployment, given Thursday’s release of new figures showing that a record 6.6 million filed claims nationally and 178,000 in Illinois — a more than 50 percent increase on the 114,000 who overloaded the Illinois Department of Employment Security system last week.

“This is the biggest onslaught of unemployment claims I think ever, at least in my lifetime,” Pritzker said, adding that IDES and the state’s information-technology staff are working to bolster the online application system.

Ezike reported a bit of good news, as the number of hospitalized patients from the Stateville Correctional Center declined from 19 to 16, as three recovered.

Pritzker, however, drew attention to the first statewide police death attributed to a COVID-19 infection, a Chicago Police Department officer. He saluted “the bravery that’s demonstrated every day by the officers.”

Ezike repeated the call for churches to suspend services or move them online. “We all must make the sacrifice,” she said. “Then, on the other side of this pandemic, we can gather at the mosque or the synagogue, the church, the museum, the library — all of these places that we love. We must not continue putting people at risk. Please hold virtual services, whether by web or phone.”