The latest
2:30 p.m. Illinois records lowest daily COVID-19 death count since March
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20532628/CV_TRANSPLANT_061220_04.jpg){kind=spacer}
Health officials on Sunday announced an additional one person has died due to the coronavirus, making it the lowest reported COVID-19 death day since March 21 — three days after the state recorded its first death.
The one fatality — a 90-year-old man in Bond County — brings the state’s death toll to 7,398.
Though the state’s coronavirus fatality rate has remained relatively low this month compared to the height of the pandemic in May, Illinois continued its upward trend of new coronavirus infections Sunday as health officials announced an additional 1,541 people have tested positive for the virus.
Read the full story from Madeline Kenney here.
News
12:14 p.m. Some US police resist enforcing coronavirus mask mandates
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Lang Holland, the chief of police in tiny Marshall, Arkansas, said he thinks the threat of the coronavirus has been overstated and only wears a face mask if he’s inside a business that requires them. He doesn’t make his officers wear them either.
So the day after Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed an order requiring masks to be worn in public throughout Arkansas, Holland made it clear his department wasn’t going to enforce the mandate in the Ozarks town of about 1,300, calling it an unconstitutional overreach.
“All I’m saying is if you want to wear a mask, you have the freedom to choose that,” said Holland, who said he supports President Donald Trump. “It should not be dictated by the nanny state.”
Holland is among a number of police chiefs and sheriffs in Arkansas and elsewhere who say they won’t enforce statewide mask requirements, even within their departments. Some say they don’t have the manpower to respond to every mask complaint, treating violations of the requirement as they would oft-ignored minor offenses such as jaywalking. Others, including Holland, reject the legal validity of mask requirements.
The pushback is concerning to health officials, who say a lack of enforcement could undermine what they say is a much-needed and simple step that can be taken to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
8:30 a.m. State COVID-19 positivity rate ticked up again Saturday with 1,426 new cases
Health officials on Saturday announced another 1,426 people across Illinois have tested positive for COVID-19.
The new cases were confirmed among 38,200 tests, raising the state’s testing positivity rate over the last week to 3.6% — a full percentage point higher than it was two weeks ago.
The Illinois Department of Public Health has urged residents to wear face masks and maintain social distance as the virus rebounds across the state, a gradual rise that Gov. J.B. Pritzker has warned could prompt business closures in some regions if case numbers aren’t reined in.
Officials on Friday singled out four downstate counties at a “warning level” for a series of outbreaks tied to “business and risky behavior.”
Read the full report from Mitchell Armentrout here.
7:30 a.m. Protesters in Springfield rally against state’s requirement of children wearing masks in schools
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20532145/Virus_Outbreak_Mask_Protest.jpg)
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Just weeks away from the ringing of the schoolhouse bell, scores of people rallied at the state Capitol Saturday against the state’s requirement that schoolchildren must wear face coverings this fall to discourage transmission of the highly contagious and potentially deadly coronavirus.
In a state where the numbers of cases of COVID-19 are rising, if not as quickly as they are surging in several other states, the protestors took aim at Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s broadside this week that people who forego face coverings are “the enemy.”
“I don’t think all this pressure needs to be put on the kids,” said Adam Dunn of Decatur, whose kids are out of school. “They need freedom to go play, have a childhood.”
The “Million Unmasked March,” which took its name from the social-justice march a quarter-century ago, drew about 250 people, including a stalwart group of counter-demonstrators who periodically let loose their own shouted protests from across the street.
read the full report from the Associated Press here.
New cases
- Mel Gibson spent a week in a Los Angeles hospital in April after testing positive for COVID-19, his representative revealed Friday. The 64-year-old actor and director has completely recovered and is doing “great” according to the rep. He also said Gibson has tested negative “numerous times” since then.
- Nats’ Juan Soto tests positive for COVID-19, will miss season opener
- Cubs quality assurance coach Mike Napoli tested positive for COVID-19.
- Thursday recorded the biggest number of new cases Illinois has seen in a single day since May 25 — 1,624. Another troubling sign is the statewide testing positivity rate, which has increased to 3.4% — nearly a full percentage point higher than it was two weeks ago.
Analysis & Commentary
7:30 a.m. Support your favorite restaurants — so long as they’re abiding by the rules on masks
The next time you go into a restaurant, take a good look around. Peek in the kitchen if you can.
Are all workers wearing masks? They should be, unless they always are six feet away from others. But anyone who has worked in a restaurant knows a six-foot rule is tough to maintain, which makes masks imperative.
Four times in the last month, when my husband and I picked up take-out meals at various restaurants in Des Plaines, a northwest suburb a stone’s throw from O’Hare Airport, workers in crowded kitchens wore no facial coverings. Some servers also weren’t wearing them.
Like a lot of you, I think it’s important to support local businesses during this pandemic. I don’t want to see restaurants shut down and livelihoods go down the drain.
But restaurants have to do their part. That means all workers must wear masks to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
