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Suburban Cook to be limited to outdoor drinking, dining — two days after first snowfall: ‘COVID storm on the rise’
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Bars and restaurants in suburban Cook County and the downstate Metro East area will no longer be able to serve patrons indoors beginning Wednesday as the state tries to curb a rise in coronavirus cases.
In addition, outdoor service will end at 11 p.m. and meetings, social events and other gatherings will be limited to 25 guests or 25% of overall room capacity in Region 10, which is surburban Cook County, and in Region 4, the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri.
The new restrictions were announced Monday by the governor’s office and the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Dr. Ngozi Ezike, the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, also reported 4,729 new COVID-19 cases Monday for a total of 378,985 in the state since the pandemic began.
It’s the first time the state’s the seven-day case average has exceeded 4,500.
The state imposed similar restrictions Friday on bars and restaurants in DuPage, Kane, Kankakee and Will counties. And Chicago reimposed a ban on indoor service in bars and a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for restaurants and other non-essential businesses.
The latest round of tightened restrictions on indoor restaurant and bar service was announced on the same day that the Chicago area saw its first snowfall of the season.
Read the full story here for more information.
News
6 p.m. Coronavirus deaths rising across US, just as experts feared
BOISE, Idaho — Deaths per day from the coronavirus in the U.S. are on the rise again, just as health experts had feared, and cases are climbing in practically every state, despite assurances from President Donald Trump over the weekend that “we’re rounding the turn, we’re doing great.”
With Election Day just over a week away, average deaths per day across the country are up 10% over the past two weeks, from 721 to nearly 794 as of Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Newly confirmed infections per day are rising in 47 states, and deaths are up in 34.
Health experts had warned that it was only a matter of time before deaths turned upward, given the record-breaking surge in cases engulfing the country. Deaths are a lagging indicator — that is, it generally takes a few weeks for people to sicken and die from the coronavirus.
2:51 p.m. Pandemic plunge: 52% decline in Chicago parking tickets, 42% drop in booting
The stay-at-home shutdown and prolonged economic slowdown triggered by the coronavirus pandemic had such a chilling effect on driving for business and pleasure, auto insurance giants doled out rebates.
Now the impact is being profoundly felt on two of the city’s biggest revenue generators — booting and ticketing — just when Mayor Lori Lightfoot is counting on raising an additional $68 million in 2021 from what she calls “enhanced enforcement initiatives.”
Based on the first six months of this year, the city is on pace to write 52% fewer parking tickets in 2020.
Last year, 2.06 million parking tickets were issued on the streets of Chicago. Through June 30 of 2020, only 498,980 tickets were written.
Booting is headed for a 42% decline — from 57,196 during all of 2019 to just 12,018 during the first six months of 2019.
Read the full story from Fran Spielman here.
12:24 p.m. Illinois one of seven states reporting record high COVID-19 infection levels this weekend
About half of U.S. states have seen their highest daily infection numbers so far at some point in October, and the country as a whole came very close to back-to-back record daily infection rates on Friday and Saturday.
Data from Johns Hopkins University shows that 83,718 new cases were reported Saturday, just shy of the 83,757 infections reported Friday. Before that, the most cases reported in the United States on a single day had been 77,362, on July 16.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which federal health officials have used as a source for their pandemic projections, currently forecasts that the U.S. COVID-19 death toll could exceed 318,000 by Jan. 1.
As of Sunday, there were nearly 8.6 million confirmed infections in the U.S., with 224,906 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
At least seven states — Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio and Oklahoma — saw record high infection levels Saturday. And some Northeastern states hit hard in the spring are seeing numbers bounce back; New Jersey’s toll of 1,909 new infections Saturday was the most it had seen in a day since early May.
10:11 a.m. Looking back at the Chicago teachers strike a year (and a pandemic) later: Was it worth it?
Exactly one year after Chicago’s historic 11-day teachers strike, the Chicago Teachers Union filed an unfair labor practice charge against the school system Thursday with the two sides facing new, unprecedented challenges — while holding the same disdain for one another.
A rollercoaster strike that featured personal attacks but ended with a historic contract should have seen both the union and district move toward a productive relationship. Yet with a deadly pandemic that requires more cooperation than ever, the memories of a bruising contract fight have lingered, hindering any agreement over a potential school reopening even as districts and unions across the country have resolved their differences.
So was the 11-day strike, the CTU’s longest in three decades, worth the damaged relationship? Do the contract changes, widely hailed as major victories for public education in Chicago, still stand up a year and one public health emergency later?
“The current contract they have, probably more so than previous ones, is a better platform to work from under a public health crisis,” said Bob Bruno, a labor professor at the University of Illinois who has studied CPS-CTU negotiations for years.
Read Nader Issa’s full report here.
8:08 a.m. Trump’s top aide: ‘we’re not going to control the pandemic’
WASHINGTON — The coronavirus has reached into the heart of the White House once more, less than a week before Election Day, as it scorches the nation and the president’s top aide says “we’re not going to control the pandemic.” Officials on Sunday scoffed at the notion of dialing back in-person campaigning despite positive tests from several aides to Vice President Mike Pence, who leads the White House coronavirus task force.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, pressed to explain why the pandemic cannot be reined in, said, “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu.” He told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the government was focused on getting effective therapeutics and vaccines to market.
Pence, who tested negative on Sunday, according to his office, planned an afternoon rally in North Carolina, while the president was scheduled to be in New Hampshire and Maine. Democrat Joe Biden attended church in the morning and planned to participate in a virtual get-out-the-vote concert at night. His running mate, Kamala Harris, told reporters in Michigan that Pence should follow federal health guidelines.
“We’re doing it, I think that we have modeled the right and good behavior, and they should take our lead,” said the California senator, who had paused in-person campaigning for several days earlier this month after an aide and member of the campaign’s flight crew test positive.
New Cases
- 18-year-old University of Dayton student from La Grange has died of COVID-19.
- The Bears put CB Michael Joseph on their reserve/COVID-19 list.
- Illinois health officials on Sunday announced 4,062 new COVID-19 cases and an additional 24 virus-related deaths, keeping Illinois’ seven-day positivity rate at 6.1% — a troubling sign that the state is heading in the wrong direction in its fight against the coronavirus, since that number, which indicates how rapidly the virus is spreading, hadn’t topped 6% in over four months.
Analysis & Commentary
7:11 a.m. Democrat Rep. Sean Casten, Republican Jeanne Ives at odds over COVID-19 response in Illinois 6 Congress race
The role of government in managing the COVID-19 pandemic is a defining issue in the congressional battle between freshman Democratic Rep. Sean Casten and Republican challenger Jeanne Ives.
Casten said in a WGN-TV debate that Ives “celebrates ignorance” when it comes to the science of dealing with coronavirus infections.
Ives said politicians like Casten “don’t trust you to make decisions” when it comes to whether there should be mandates to wear masks or rules about eating in restaurants. “You are treating adults like children,” she said.
The twin health and economic crises speak to Casten and Ives — very differently.
Casten’s political brand is built on his background in science with climate change his central issue.
Ives’ reputation as a fierce social and anti-tax fiscal conservative was solidified when the three-term state representative took on her own party establishment in her nearly successful 2018 GOP primary bid against then-Gov. Bruce Rauner.
