The number of coronavirus cases in Illinois has reached 25, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday.
“A number of patients have now made a full recovery,” Pritzker said at a news conference in the Loop.
The new cases are a Lake County man in his 50s, and five Chicago/Cook County cases: a man in 80s, two men in their 70s, a woman in her 50s and a man in 40s, said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Local efforts to gauge and deal with the outbreak, Pritzker said, are hindered from the very top, starting with President Donald Trump.
“He’s not taking it seriously. You see what he tweets about this,” Pritzker said.
On the other hand, the attitude is different “when you talk to the people who are actually doing the work” at the federal level.
Pritzker again criticized a Centers for Disease Control decision that has hindered community health efforts, he said.
The result of not letting “the best research hospitals around the U.S. to develop their own tests,” he said, “we’re not getting enough tests.”
He has reached out to the federal government, but “I received no return phone calls” on Tuesday.
“I know many other governors are speaking the same language” on their needs, Pritzker said. “We need not thousands of tests, but tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of tests.”
Pritzker also discussed the decision to cancel any Illinois General Assembly sessions through March 24, the cancellation of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and touted the availability of mail-in ballots, which must be requested by Thursday.
Earlier Wednesday, Chicago’s top public health official had said the city is “a very long way” from having widespread transmission of the coronavirus, which has so far sickened at least 19 people in Illinois.
But Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said she expects the number of cases in the city and state to “continue to grow.”
As a preemptive move, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a disaster proclamation Monday intended to open up access to additional federal funding for the state’s COVID-19 response efforts.
On Wednesday, standing beside Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot at the city’s Office of Emergency Management in the West Loop, Arwady urged anyone who is unwell to stay home.
“First, and most importantly, we need everyone in Chicago and in Illinois to stay home if you are sick,” Arwady said. “Everyone who is sick must stay home, and not just for St. Patrick’s Day.”
Arwady also urged those with underlying health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, and the elderly — especially those 80 or older — to avoid large gatherings.
Lightfoot made a similar request: “For God’s sake, regardless of your age, if you’re sick, stay home. Don’t go to work, Don’t go to school. Don’t try to be a hero and tough it out. This is not the time for that.”
