Capitol News Illinois · December 11 Week in Review
Gov. JB Pritzker said the state continues to make gradual progress in suppressing the spread of COVID-19 and the state’s public health director said she plans to receive a virus vaccine when it is her turn in line.
They made the comments during a daily COVID-19 briefing in Chicago on Thursday, the same day the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was set to consider emergency approval of a COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the drug company Pfizer.
“At the beginning of the week, I said that I was hopeful that some of the recent early improvement in our COVID leading indicators will continue. And I'm glad to say that we have yet to see a reversal in our progress,” Pritzker said.
Another 196 COVID-19-positive individuals have been reported dead over the previous 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 13,861 among 823,531 confirmed or probable cases and 11.4 million test results reported. But positivity rates and hospitalizations were showing a general downward trend.
Still, Pritzker said, “I cannot overstate how preliminary this progress is.”
“We unfortunately still have hundreds more Illinoisans in the hospital fighting COVID-19 than we did at our spring peak, but we're also hundreds below our overall pandemic record to date of November 25,” he said.
He and Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike urged holiday celebrants to keep gatherings to one household, avoiding large gatherings.
Ezike said while it could be several months before a vaccine is widely available to the general public, it’s important to continue to observe public health mitigations in the meantime.
“I urge you not to plan an end-of -year party or holiday party in the large gatherings that we're used to, but start planning for the end-of-pandemic party for next year,” she said.
When the vaccine becomes available, she will take it if it is indeed approved by the FDA, she said.
“I do trust in vaccines, I trust in the development and approval system that has been created in this country, and from what is known, the safety and the efficacy of the vaccine, has been evaluated appropriately,” she said.
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TESTING STILL IMPORTANT: Gov. JB Pritzker noted the importance of testing in suppressing COVID-19 positivity rates and targeting actions for mitigating spread at his Wednesday, Dec. 9, briefing. He was joined by Rajiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, which is coordinating a national COVID-19 testing action plan.
Pritzker said the foundation has been “an important convener of public health officials and elected leaders to exchange best practices for protecting the health of their communities.”
Shah said the foundation’s goal is “fast, frequent testing” nationwide.
“Testing is really the only way out of the false choice between shutting everything down and suffering widespread loss of life,” Shah said.
Shah said 22 states including Illinois are part of the foundation’s testing alliance.
Pritzker said he has repeatedly called for a national testing strategy through the federal government and he has repeated the request to the transition team of President-elect Joe Biden.
“Even with all the well-deserved excitement around a vaccine right now, it will be months before vaccines are available to the general public,” he said. “So it's incredibly important that we do everything in our power to temper the spread of this virus in the coming weeks and months.”
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COVID-19 UPDATE: The Illinois Department of Public Health reported another 11,101 new confirmed or probable cases Thursday out of 114,503 test results reported. That made for a one-day positivity rate of 9.5 percent, which brought the seven-day rolling average case positivity rate to 9.5 percent, a decrease of one-tenth of a percentage point from the day prior.
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have leveled as well, although available bed capacity remains near pandemic lows. As of Wednesday night, there were 5,138 people hospitalized in Illinois for COVID-19, a decrease of 146 from the day prior. That left about 24.6 percent of beds available.
COVID-19 patients occupied 1,081 intensive care unit beds at the end of Wednesday, a decrease from the day prior, leaving 615 staffable ICU beds available statewide for a capacity of 18.5 percent.
There were 606 ventilators in use by COVID-19 patients, also a decrease from the day prior, leaving about 70 percent of ventilators available.
Regionally, positivity rates ranged from 10.1 percent in Region 3 which includes the Springfield area and several surrounding counties, to 15.2 in Region 4, which includes the Metro East region on the Missouri border.
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COVID SPENDING: The head of Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget office said this week that the state of Illinois is on track to spend all of the money it received through the federal CARES Act by the Dec. 30 deadline, as of Thursday, Dec. 10.
That means it is unlikely the state will have to repay any of the funds to the federal government, but whether or not Congress approves any additional funding remains an open question.
Alexis Sturm, director of the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget, told a legislative oversight panel that of the $3.5 billion the state received in April, a little less than $1.5 billion remains unspent. But she said state agencies have spent money out of their own budgets for COVID-19-related expenses that can be reimbursed with the federal funds.
“And that should be enough to … expend the balance of those funds,” Sturm told the Restore Illinois Collaborative Commission, a legislative group that has been meeting monthly since July to monitor the state’s COVID-19 response.
Congress passed the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act in late March. It included financial aid to state and local governments to help cover their costs for responding to the pandemic.
In addition to the funds that went into state coffers, the city of Chicago along with Cook, Kane, Lake and Will counties, which all have populations over 500,000, received direct aid of their own, for a total of roughly $4.9 billion that came to Illinois.
Congress stipulated, however, that the money could only be used for expenses directly related to COVID-19 response efforts and not to make up for revenue shortfalls due to the pandemic. The law also requires that all of the money be spent on costs that are incurred on or before Dec. 30.
During the first several weeks, Sturm said, the Illinois Emergency Management Agency spent about $375 million for things like personal protective equipment, or PPE, setting up alternate care sites and testing sites, contact tracing and reimbursing state agencies for their increased operational costs.
When lawmakers came back for their abbreviated session in May, they established a framework for spending the remaining funds in the fiscal year that began July 1. By that time, about $3.1 billion of the CARES Act money remained.
Since then, the Pritzker administration has set up a number of grant programs that have been funded with CARES Act money. Those have included the Business Interruption Grant, or BIG, program for businesses that were forced to close or reduce operations during the initial stay-at-home order, a separate BIG program for child care facilities, financial aid for homeowners and renters, and a reimbursement program for local governments to cover their COVID-19 expenses.
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VACCINE UPDATE: As COVID-19 infection rates continued to fall Tuesday, Dec. 8, Gov. JB Pritzker said the first delivery of a vaccine could arrive in Illinois as early as next week, although it could take several months before it is widely available to the general public.
Speaking at his daily media briefing in Chicago, Pritzker noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had released its analysis of data on a vaccine developed by the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech.
Although the state of Illinois is having its own independent team review the data, Pritzker said the vaccine appears to be effective in 95 percent of the people who receive it, and in 94 percent of people over age 65.
“Illinois will only distribute a vaccine that is deemed safe, and we are one of many states that have established additional review panels, including Indiana, California, New York, West Virginia and Michigan,” Pritzker said. “Our Illinois team is already poring over the analysis released by the FDA on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this morning.”
An FDA review committee met Thursday and gave Emergency Use Authorization to release the vaccine, a preliminary step before full approval. If approval happens, Pritzker said, the first shipment could arrive in Illinois next week.
The drug company Moderna has also applied for Emergency Use Authorization for a vaccine it is developing.
Bonnie Blue, 68, of Chicago, who has suffered from severe asthma much of her life, was among the people who took part in clinical trials of that vaccine. She spoke at Tuesday’s briefing to encourage everyone to get the vaccine once it becomes available.
“For a person who has been on life support so many times, for me to take part in this trial was a huge risk, a risk that my family and friends were not happy that I was taking,” she said. “But I am here. I’m fine. I did not have horrible side effects from anything.”
Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said it could take as long as a year for the vaccine to reach everyone in Illinois. She said the first priority will be health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities.
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NATIONAL GUARD HELP: Gov. JB Pritzker said Thursday his administration has requested the help of the Illinois National Guard at three of four state-run veterans homes, including two homes that are dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks.
Pritzker said the National Guard members were sent to the LaSalle Veterans’ Home on Thursday, and will arrive on Monday at state-run homes in Quincy and Manteno to provide “staff support for screening and handling testing data tracking so that medical staff can focus on direct patient support.”
The LaSalle Veterans’ Home reported an additional death this week, bringing the death toll at the facility to 33 residents since a coronavirus outbreak was first reported at the home on Nov. 1.
“Since the current outbreak at the home, every employee is tested with rapid result antigen tests prior to every shift and residents are tested every day. In recent weeks this protocol has identified six asymptomatic staff as carriers. As a result of that identification, they were able to isolate,” Pritzker said at his daily news conference Thursday.
He said an outbreak at the Quincy facility, which includes six separate residential buildings, has resulted in positive tests for 32 of 293 residents, along with 22 staff, “though it is currently primarily limited to one residential building within the home and staff do not work among multiple buildings.”
Illinois Department of Public Health staff and specialists with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have visited the Quincy site in recent days, Pritzker said.
The veterans home in Manteno has reported three of 169 residents and four staff who are currently positive for COVID-19, according to Pritzker.
He said the Anna Veterans’ Home and the Prince Home, which is a separate facility on the Manteno campus, have not reported any positive cases among residents or staff in their most recent tests.
This week, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee also requested a list of documents and information related to the LaSalle outbreak from IDVA.
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FACEBOOK LAWSUIT: Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed a lawsuit against Facebook Inc. on Wednesday as part of a coalition of 48 state attorneys general and top lawyers from U.S. territories.
In the 123-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the 48 states listed as plaintiffs allege that Facebook used illegal tactics to undercut competition “in the personal social networking market in the United States.”
The states are asking the federal court to ban Facebook from continuing certain financial practices, restrain their ability to purchase other companies valued at $10 million or more without notifying the plaintiff states and potentially restructure Facebook by removing assets the court determines were illegally obtained.
The Federal Trade Commission has also filed its own lawsuit against Facebook to “undo and prevent its anticompetitive conduct and unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce.”
“For nearly a decade, Facebook has profited tremendously by monetizing the personal information and online habits of users. Key to its strategy has been impeding and eliminating any perceived competition, ensuring that users have no alternative to Facebook’s platform,” Raoul said in a release distributed Wednesday afternoon.
Key to both lawsuits filed against Facebook is its 2012 acquisition of the photo-sharing platform Instagram and its 2014 acquisition of the mobile messaging application WhatsApp. The FTC and states that are suing Facebook allege that the company tracked the metrics of start-ups in industries Facebook was interested in and offered to buy out the companies with offers far above their actual value, inflating the worth of those companies during acquisition and eliminating future competition that could hinder Facebook’s growth.
Mentioned in the FTC lawsuit is Facebook’s failed attempts to purchase Snapchat and Twitter, two other now-large competitors, early in their development cycle in 2013 and 2008 respectively.
By purchasing competitors, collecting vast amounts of private information on their customers and freezing out third parties from accessing that data after they became reliant on Facebook, the company was able to establish an advertising monopoly in the social media-sphere, according to the two lawsuits.
While separate from the states’ lawsuit against Facebook, the FTC’s filing also calls for assets, such as Instagram and WhatsApp, to be removed from Facebook’s holdings under existing anti-trust laws.
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UNEMPLOYMENT UPDATE: More than 107,000 Illinois workers filed first-time unemployment claims last week, a 45-percent increase over the week before as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to wreak havoc on the state and national economies.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security reported that there were 107,616 new claims filed during the week that ended Saturday, Dec. 5, up from 75,536 the previous week. That compares to 14,798 initial claims filed during the same period last year.
That increase was part of a nationwide trend as the entire country has experienced record numbers of new cases and hospitalizations due to the pandemic. But the increase in new jobless claims in Illinois was sharper than it was nationally.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, new unemployment claims nationwide rose 32 percent over the prior week, to 947,504.
The number of people receiving continuing unemployment benefits has also risen. In Illinois, that number went up 14.5 percent, to 340,919, while nationally it rose 10 percent, to just under 5.8 million.
During his daily COVID-19 briefing on Thursday, Gov. JB Pritzker declined to say whether the state’s increase was due in any part to the stricter Tier 3 mitigations that went into effect Nov. 20.
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GUN LICENSING DELAYS: Four GOP state House lawmakers on Wednesday, Dec. 9, voiced complaints from constituents who say they have waited months after applying for new or renewed gun ownership licenses without an update from the Illinois State Police.
Reps. Avery Bourne, R-Morrisonville, CD Davidsmeyer, R-Jacksonville, Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis and Mike Marron, R-Fithian, repeated their criticisms of the Firearm Ownership Identification card and concealed carry license systems during a virtual news conference.
According to ISP, the current average processing time for new FOID applications is 121 days. For new CCL applications, the average processing time is 145 days. ISP, in a release issued Tuesday, stated the processing times “are unacceptable.” But they said ISP will need authority from the General Assembly “to untangle, streamline and integrate the aging patchwork of FOID, concealed carry, firearms transactions, and records checks if we are going to fulfill this mission.”
The Illinois State Police Firearms Services Bureau is responsible for issuing FOID cards and concealed carry licenses. ISP has 30 days from the date it receives an application and filing fee to either approve or deny that request. For renewals, state police officials have 60 days. ISP typically has 90 days from the date it receives an application and fee to approve or deny the license request.
The long delays and significant backlog at the Firearms Services Bureau trace back to the budget impasse under Gov. Bruce Rauner, but these issues were exacerbated in 2020 when the agency saw increased applications for FOID cards and concealed carry licenses, according to the news release.
ISP reported it received 147,862 FOID card applications from March through June, and that figure was more than double the amount received in the prior four-month period. There were 144,476 new FOID applications pending as of Dec. 7, 2020, according to ISP, while total new CCL pending applications are at 27,248.
ISP has hired 21 Firearms Eligibility Analysts since March 2020, with 11 more set to start in January 2021, and has added 19 temporary contracted employees to the Firearms Services Bureau, according to the news release.
ISP also issued an emergency rule allowing for expired cards or licenses to remain valid during the duration of the state's disaster proclamation and for 18 months following the end of the disaster, as long as the card or license holder submits a renewal application.
Davidsmeyer said this does not resolve the problem facing his constituents with expired cards because gun stores can decline to sell guns or ammunition to someone with an expired card.
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TAX INCREASE OR BUDGET CUTS: As the state government attempts to close a multi-billion-dollar budget hole, Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan has said he is prepared to vote for an increase to the state’s flat income tax rate should the governor request it — a proposal met with pushback from his Republican counterpart, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin.
The $3.9 billion budget shortfall, projected by the state budget office, that lawmakers will confront this spring has gained an increasing sense of urgency with the defeat of the graduated income tax constitutional amendment at the ballot on Nov. 3.
Voters rejected the initiative that would have replaced the state’s flat income tax with a graduated income tax, which was projected to raise revenues by more than $3 billion annually.
The state’s flat income tax rate is currently 4.95 percent. The rate had been 3.75 percent from 2015 to 2017, and it was 5 percent from 2011 to 2014.
The state budget office has projected budget deficits ranging from $4.8 billion in 2022 and $4.2 billion by fiscal year 2026, according to a report last month from the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget.
Madigan’s comments, reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, came during a speaker candidate forum of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus on Saturday.
Pritzker dodged a question at his daily briefing on Monday about Madigan’s statement that he would support a tax hike endorsed by Pritzker.
“I’m focused on the cuts that need to be made in state government, making sure that we’re paring back as best we can, making efficiencies in state government, looking to Republican and Democratic leaders as I already have and asking them for their best ideas about what it is that we need to cut in state government,” Pritzker said. “And I will say that I have not yet heard back from the leaders about what their best proposals are for what cuts need to be made. And so I’m awaiting their responses.”
On Tuesday, Durkin, of Western Springs, called on Pritzker to release the spending cuts his administration requested from each agency leader last September.
When asked about whether Durkin has drafted his own proposed list of agency spending cuts, a spokesperson for Durkin said he has asked “repeatedly to begin by looking at this list of agency cuts.”
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DNA BACKLOG PROGRESS: Representatives of the Illinois State Police say the backlog of forensic evidence in Illinois has been reduced significantly, but the support of lawmakers is needed to further address delays and deficiencies in the process.
Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly made those comments to the Illinois Senate Public Health Committee during a Thursday, Dec. 3, hearing on the DNA backlog and evidence processing.
According to Kelly, since 2019, ISP’s Division of Forensic Services has reduced the number of “biology DNA pending assignments,” referred to as the DNA backlog, by 48 percent. In March of 2019, the backlog had 9,829 pending assignments, which has fallen to 4,857 pending assignments as of November 2020.
In a January hearing before the same committee, the ISP director told legislators that the average time for processing DNA evidence was 215 days—roughly seven months—and that the number of DNA biology assignments that were older than a year was over 1,300. As of November, Kelly said the average time for processing DNA evidence has dropped to 110 days and the number of cases older than a year has fallen to 196.
The improvement in the rate of processing the backlog was done with a reduced staff as well, he said. Many forensic scientists from ISP were temporarily reassigned to the Illinois Department of Public Health for over four months to assist the state’s COVID-19 testing system.
Many witnesses expressed praise for the reduction in the backlog but asked for more to be done on behalf of victims at the local level, such as more transparency regarding the status of DNA evidence in their cases and compassionate communication between law enforcement and the families of victims. Organizers during the hearing also stressed that any commission or legislation being considered to address the DNA backlog should have community representation.
Kelly requested that both houses of the General Assembly pass legislation to create a permanent, full-time commission on forensic science. The commission could discover new deficiencies in the process and devise ways to solve them.
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VETERANS HOME INVESTIGATION: A coronavirus outbreak at the veterans home in LaSalle that has killed a quarter of the residents over the span of a few weeks has prompted the chairman of a state House committee to open an investigation into the deaths.
In a Dec. 1 letter, state Rep. André Thapedi, D-Chicago, said the House Judiciary Civil Committee he chairs is “taking steps to conduct a fact-based investigation and hearings” before the new Illinois General Assembly is sworn in on Jan. 13. He addressed the letter to Gov. JB Pritzker, Attorney General Kwame Raoul, House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs.
On Dec. 2, Thapedi submitted a written request for a broad range of documents pertaining to the outbreak from Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs Administrator Angela Mehlbrech, who was fired this week as administrator of the LaSalle facility.
The written request asks for vendor information for the hand sanitizer and personal protective equipment used, as well as the specific rules and protocols related to COVID-19 in effect at the facility, among other demands for information and documents.
Thapedi’s letter asked Mehlbrech to provide the documents by Wednesday, Dec. 9.
Since the outbreak began on Nov. 1, the LaSalle home has reported that 32 residents have died of COVID-19 related illnesses, according to the latest update from the IDVA on Dec. 5. As of midnight on Oct. 31, there were 128 residents at the home, according to an IDVA spokesperson.
The investigation by the House committee is separate from an independent investigation by the acting inspector general from the Illinois Department of Human Services, which Chapa LaVia announced last week.
Thapedi said the civil judiciary committee’s investigation is also not in coordination with Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego, chairwoman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, who has called for an in-person committee meeting in Chicago currently set for Dec. 15.
Unlike the Senate, the House failed to pass a measure during its brief session in May that would have allowed for virtual committee hearings.
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LASALLE ADMIN FIRED: The Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs announced Monday, Dec. 7, that LaSalle Veterans’ Home Administrator Angela Mehlbrech has been fired after a deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle facility has resulted in at least 32 resident deaths.
IDVA also announced that the director of nursing at the LaSalle facility, Jackie Cook, has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the acting inspector general of the Illinois Department of Human Services.
IDVA Acting Assistant Director Anthony Vaughn will serve as the interim administrator at LaSalle until a permanent replacement is made, according to the IDVA press release.
“IDVA mourns the tragedy of the veteran heroes lost to COVID-19 at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home. We will ensure that (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and IDPH protocols are followed and full accountability occurs for any lapses in protocols,” Vaughn said in the release.
Vaughn, a 24-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps, joined IDVA upon his retirement from active duty in 2005, where he has served for the past 15 years.
As of Monday morning, 39 of the 96 current residents at LaSalle have tested positive for the virus, as well as 21 staff at the facility, Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday at his daily news conference.
“Since the moment that we found out there was an outbreak, there's been a lot of effort that's been made to evaluate the problems at the home and to mitigate those problems. This is another way for us to keep the people in that home safe,” Pritzker said in response to a question about the decision to fire Mehlbrech.
Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, whose district includes the LaSalle home, wrote in a statement on Monday that Mehlbrech’s firing is a step toward bringing accountability.
“While this is a step in the right direction, it does raise new questions. On what grounds was this person removed from their position? What does the Governor’s office know about their conduct that we don’t? The Governor needs to be transparent about what information led to this decision,” Rezin wrote in the statement.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
