Onward to Phase 3 to Restore Illinois

Pritzker defends need to retain public services in pandemic, focuses scrutiny going forward on nursing homes

Gov. Pritzker prepares to move the state forward to the third phase of Restore Illinois at Thursday’s coronavirus briefing. (Illinois.gov)

By Ted Cox

The governor applauded the imminent move to the third phase of the Restore Illinois plan at the daily coronavirus briefing Thursday, preparing to ease restrictions statewide while setting guidelines for tiers of businesses to reopen.

“Starting tomorrow, all areas of the state are eligible to reopen in accordance with Restore Illinois Phase 3,” also known as “Recovery,” Pritzker said at the Thompson Center in Chicago. He added that it “offers specific guidance on how things like outdoor dining, outdoor recreation, manufacturing, retail, personal-care services, and offices can move forward with safety measures in place,” guidelines laid out specifically online.

Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike announced 1,527 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 Thursday, bringing the state total to 115,833. Some 104 new deaths pushed the statewide toll to 5,186. But those figures remained consistent and well below the levels of a few weeks ago, and COVID-19 hospitalizations remained well below 4,000 statewide.

“As a state, we are definitely headed in the right direction,” Ezike said. “We have successfully met the metrics to advance into Phase 3. But we must still proceed with caution.”

“As a state, we are definitely headed in the right direction. We have successfully met the metrics to advance into Phase 3. But we must still proceed with caution.”

Dr. Ngozi Ezike (Illinois.com)

On that note, Ezike and Pritzker announced new rules under the Department of Public Health calling for nursing homes and other facilities offering long-term care to establish their own individual guidelines for testing procedures and to confirm a set relationship with a testing lab — the better to monitor health and address outbreaks. Pritzker said it gives IDPH “additional teeth in securing buy-in” from these homes, the vast majority of which are privately owned, and where a full 44 percent of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have originated.

“COVID-19 is unrelenting, and it has visited its worst effects on older Americans,” Pritzker said. “But our state will continue to use every resource at our disposal and the collective medical experience from across the nation to protect our seniors throughout this crisis.”

Otherwise, however, Thursday’s emphasis was on easing restrictions, for instance on houses of worship. Faced with a flurry of lawsuits statewide seeking to reopen religious services, Pritzker said the state was setting guidelines to offer “guidance, not mandatory restrictions” on those services. Saying they basically consist of “recommendations,” Pritzker nonetheless repeated his belief that “the safest options remain remote and online services.”

Pritzker emphasized, “Our goal is, and always has been, to keep people safe from this coronavirus while we restore more of our normal activities.”

In addition to the set guidelines for social distancing going forward, as possible in a variety of settings from factories to hair salons, Pritzker called on employers and employees to show “common decency” in settling any disputes, “and then we’ll rely on enforcement wherever we need to.”

Pritzker defended the approach adopted by his administration and, last weekend, by the General Assembly in endorsing a state budget with relatively few cuts to services. “As I’ve said all along, this is not a time for governments — state governments particularly — to be cutting services, especially a government like ours where agencies have been hollowed out over a number of years,” he said. “I’ve attempted heartily to build back up some of those agencies, but I’ve known, and I think everybody else has known, it would be a multiyear process to do that, because it took many years to slash and burn those agencies.”

The governor repeated the necessity for all states to receive COVID-19 relief funding from the federal government, given the lost revenue from the economic collapse stemming from the pandemic. “We’re not in a unique position,” he added. “Making cuts now would be so bad for working families and for people who’ve been out of work as a result of COVID-19, that what we’d like to do is maintain state government as it is — again, still hollowed out to some degree, as it has been over the years — and then we’ll manage through as the next month or so reveals whether the federal government will step up.”

Pritzker said the same basic three metrics — testing positivity rate below 20 percent, stable hospitalization figures, and ample hospital capacity to deal with regional outbreaks — would determine the move to the fourth phase of Restore Illinois, “Revitalization,” fully reopening bars and restaurants, as well as schools and gatherings of up to 50 people. The move to the third phase Friday basically erases the board and calls for the state to make continued progress against the pandemic, even with the eased restrictions.

“If we have a surge, a spike, and we need to quell that spike, we might potentially have to move backward in the phases,” Pritzker said. “That’s not anything any of us wants to do, but certainly it wouldn’t allow a region of the state to move forward if it wasn’t meeting the metrics that we’ve set.” He said he was also open to reconsidering those remaining restrictions and easing them up ahead of the next 28-day deadline, June 26, if the medical information in the meantime indicates it would be prudent.

“Let’s not move backward,” Pritzker said, “but instead let’s move forward together.”