McCormick Place ready as state tops 200 COVID-19 deaths

Lightfoot, Pritzker blister Jerad Kushner, Trump administration on lack of federal help

Backed by workers who’ve converted McCormick Place into a de facto hospital, Gov. Pritzker, Mayor Lightfoot, and Dr. Ngozi Ezike give the daily coronavirus update Friday.

By Ted Cox

The governor and Chicago’s mayor touted the conversion of the McCormick Place convention center into a site to treat COVID-19 patients Friday, as the state death toll climbed past 200.

But while Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot showered praise on union workers, medical experts, the Illinois National Guard, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the swift completion of makeshift rooms for the first 500 beds at the sprawling alternate-care site, they spared nothing when it came to criticizing the Trump administration after White House aide Jerad Kushner said Thursday that the federal stockpile of emergency medical supplies was “ours” and not to be shared with the states.

“It’s called the United States of America,” Pritzker said, “and the federal government … is supposed to be backstopping the states. He apparently does not know that.” He railed “that the federal government would abdicate its role and have 50 states — five territories on top of that — all competing with one another and competing against the federal government to get the PPE that’s necessary” to fight the coronavirus pandemic, meaning the masks, gowns, and other material considered personal protective equipment for doctors, nurses, and others treating coronavirus patients. “I think Jerad Kushner just does not understand this issue. He just does not understand what the federal government’s role is supposed to be in a national emergency.”

Beginning her remarks by saying, “I think the governor just showed incredible restraint,” Lightfoot added, “We shouldn’t have to beg the federal government to step up and assume its responsibility here. When we hear from the head of the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) that the federal stockpile only has 10,000 ventilators, the question we should ask is what the heck has the Trump administration been doing over the last three and a half years? What that tells me, what that tells public-health officials across the nation, is that the federal government has failed to do the planning that it needs on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to be prepared.

“So we’re not waiting for the feds,” she said. “We’re doing what’s necessary. … But my oh my, somebody like Jerad Kushner casting aspersions on the hard work of governors across this country who have been working tirelessly night and day to be leaders and to care for the residents in their states, that tells you a lot about the character of him.”

Kushner, of course, is also President Trump’s son-in-law and has had a largely behind-the-scenes role in handling the COVID-19 pandemic before his appearance Thursday at the daily White House briefing.

Pritzker repeated his almost daily complaint that “we do not have enough tests. The federal government said that they were going to provide millions of tests, and all the states relied upon that promise, and it still hasn’t happened.” The governor added that on its own Illinois had gone from processing 600 tests a day for the coronavirus to now 5,000 a day on the way to twice that. “Frankly, I’d like to get to 100,000 a day if he could,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to build up our testing capability, because we’re getting no help from anywhere else.”

Pritzker called on Congress to pass additional relief measures and send them to the president. “The expenditures that are being made are extraordinary,” he said, “because every hospital expects to be overrun.”

To that end, he could not have been more pleased with the rapid turnaround of McCormick Place, the site of his daily coronavirus briefing on Friday. “Five short days ago, this was an empty convention hall,” Pritzker said. “I’m genuinely blown away by what’s happened here. … Monumental, round-the-clock dedication is what got this done.”

Praising the “phenomenal amount of work” done, Lightfoot added, “We started on Tuesday with an empty box, and now look.”

McCormick Place is expected to accommodate 3,000 beds by the end of the month. Lightfoot said it will serve “low-acuity patients,” meaning those less severely ill, and it’s “intended to take the strain off the existing hospital system.”

Dr. Nick Turkal, who stepped down last year as head of Advocate Aurora Health Care, was named executive director of what’s considered the McCormick Place Alternate Care Facility. He said he hoped the conversion would prove to be unnecessary, but “we expect to see patients here and will be prepared.” He emphasized that doctors and hospitals will determine which patients should be sent there, and sick individuals should not show up at McCormick Place on their own.

Pritzker emphasized the need by pointing out the state had 26,000 hospital beds as of March 24 and 2,600 Intensive Care Unit beds, and those numbers have now grown to 28,000 beds and 2,680 ICU beds, but only just over 11,000 beds are currently available, 41 percent of the total, and 800 ICU beds are open, just 29 percent of the total, and cases aren’t expected to peak until later this month.

“It very well might be that this virus overwhelms our hospital capacity in Illinois,” Pritzker said.

In fact, the state reported 1,209 new COVID-19 cases Friday, the largest one-day increase yet, and 53 deaths brought the statewide toll to 210. Illinois has now confirmed 8,904 coronavirus infections in 64 of the state’s 102 counties.

Pritzker said Vibra Hospital in Springfield would be reopened to give central Illinois an alternate-care facility, joining previously announced hospitals reopening in Elgin and Blue Island.

Pritzker said the trending science on COVID-19 from the CDC seemed to suggest that everyone should be wearing masks in public as a way to discourage transmission of the disease both for those who might give it and not know they’re contagious and those who might receive it. Calling it “a common-sense way to do what’s right for everyone around you,” he said, “Wearing something to cover your face is a good idea based upon what the science says.” He repeated that the best preventive measure is to stay home.

As Turkal said while lauding the work done at McCormick Place, “It’s unfortunate I haven’t been able to shake the hand of anyone who’s helped this week.”