Gov. extends stay-at-home order through May

Some restrictions eased, but ‘this is the part where we have to dig in,’ says Pritzker

A visitor walks past Lorado Taft’s statue “Eternal Silence” at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago earlier this month. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

By Ted Cox

Saying, “This is the part where we have to dig in,” Gov. Pritzker extended the statewide stay-at-home order through May on Thursday, while easing some restrictions on hospitals, state parks, and “nonessential” retail businesses.

At the daily coronavirus briefing at the Thompson Center in Chicago, Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike reported 1,826 new COVID-19 cases and 123 deaths statewide — both approaching the single-day highs. That lifted the state death toll to 1,688, with 36,934 confirmed cases.

Nonetheless, she reported that hospitalizations are holding steady, as are the number of COVID-19 patients in Intensive Care Units and on ventilators. Ezike and Pritzker applauded how the state appeared to be “flattening the curve” in the rise of infections, without yet reaching the peak. In fact, the plateau in the number of infections will likely last into May. Thus, the need for extending the stay-at-home order.

“The power of exponential growth is still there,” Ezike said. “We still have the enemy out there.”

“Pushing the peak further down the line might not sound like good news, but I promise you it saves lives,” Pritzker said. “And make no mistake — Illinois has saved lives. By staying home and social distancing, we have kept our infection and death rates for the months of March and April thousands below the rates projected had we not implemented those mitigation strategies. The good people of this state have allowed our health-care professionals the ability to treat patients to the best of their ability without having to make dark choices — very real choices that doctors in other countries faced about who lives and who dies. That is a historic and heroic act carried out by all of you.”

Warning of a “second wave” of infections should he lift the stay-at-home order too soon, Pritzker added, “If we let up now, we would have nowhere near the kind of hospital capacity that we would need. The projections are clear. If we lifted the stay-at-home order tomorrow, we would see our deaths per day shoot into the thousands by the end of May, and that would last well into the summer.

“No amount of political pressure would ever make me allow such a scenario for our state — our beloved state of Illinois,” he said. Calling it “the most difficult part of this journey,” he said, “This is the part where we have to dig in, and we have to understand that the sacrifices we’ve made as a state to avoid a worst-case scenario are working, and we need to keep going a little while longer to finish the job.”

Gov. Pritzker and Dr. Ngozi Ezike lay out the reasons and the projection models behind their extension of the COVID-19 stay-at-home order. (Illinois.gov)

That said, Pritzker and Ezike said they’d start considering allowing hospitals to conduct elective surgeries, especially critical procedures that have simply been delayed as long as possible, as long as it does not affect “bed capacity for COVID patients,” Ezike said.

The Pritzker administration announced that “greenhouses, garden centers, and nurseries may reopen as essential businesses,” while retail businesses previously considered “nonessential” will be permitted to conduct deliveries and curbside pickups. Some state parks will reopen, and fishing and boating will be permitted — with no more than two people allowed in the same boat. Golf courses will reopen “under strict safety guidelines provided by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.”

Schools will be allowed to “establish procedures for pickup of necessary supplies or student belongings,” while college “dormitory move-outs must follow public health guidelines, including social distancing.”

Pritzker announced that people older than 2 will be required to wear a mask or other facial covering of the nose and mouth in places where social distancing can’t be maintained, such as stores. Essential businesses and factories will be required to provide such masks to employees and institute policies to maximize social distancing, with new occupancy limits to be set.

Pritzker said he expects state residents to police themselves on these policies. “We’re encouraging everybody to do the right thing,” he said. “People should wear a mask. And they should be reminded if they’re not wearing a mask.” He warned, much like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the first days of the stay-at-home order, that harsher policies would follow if these are not observed, saying, “If we start to see crowds and people violating the order or breaking the rules, I will need to bring back these restrictions.”

Pritzker based his decision on models provided by state experts on infectious disease who attended Thursday’s briefing. “Modeling an epidemic is not rocket science,” said Prof. Nigel Goldenfeld of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “It’s harder.” He compared it to trying to predict the path of a rocket from a certain location in space, without knowing where or when it launched. Each incremental addition of data helps determine where it might go.

Goldenfeld warned, “We do not know if COVID-19 will fade out over summer,” like influenza. The good news if it does, he added, might also mean bad news in a potential return in the fall. It’s still not known for certain, meanwhile, if infected patients gain immunity or if they can be reinfected, while the presence of an unknown percentage of people who carry it without showing symptoms complicates things immensely.

“It’s not the time we can really let our guard down,” added his UIUC bioengineering colleague Prof. Sergei Maslov. A potential second wave of infection “would quickly overwhelm the ability of our hospitals to respond.”

With 96 of the state’s 102 counties having reported infections, Pritzker warned that no area should feel secure and no region should feel put upon by observing the statewide stay-at-home order. “It is everywhere,” he said. “Where is there an outbreak? Everywhere.

“I’m not in the business of comparing suffering,” Pritzker added. “But we have the opportunity to prevent the pain of loss from touching the lives of thousands. … I’m asking you to hold on for just a little while longer to help make sure that we all see through to the other side of this struggle.”