chicagotribune--2020-12-16--The Spin: Pritzker, Lightfoot hail first vaccines here | Pritzker announces $711M in budget cuts | B

The Spin: Pritzker, Lightfoot hail first vaccines here | Pritzker announces $711M in budget cuts | Biden to tap Buttigieg as Transportation secretary — not Rahm

“ I know these people are hoping for some of those later or middle adopters to say , ‘ Hey @ @ @ @ @ looks just like me , who does the same work I do , is from @ @ @ @ @ getting this done , that ’ s from my state , ’ ” Ezike said @ @ @ @ @ Peoria .
“ And so I imagine that there will be a big push toward @ @ @ @ @ spring … And so there might be a big surge of people wanting the vaccine @ @ @ @ @ but I still think there are adequate numbers of people now , so this will @ @ @ @ @ much of 2021 .
”

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker, left, and public health officials, announce new precautionary measures against the coronavirus, during a press conference at the Thompson Center, Feb. 28, 2020. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
Just minutes and roughly 165 miles apart, Mayor Lori Lightfoot in Chicago and Gov. J.B. Pritzker in Peoria looked on as the first COVID-19 vaccinations were administered to health care workers earlier today.
In two made-for-TV news conferences — important as they try convince people hesitant about the inoculations — there was a sense of relief from both the mayor and the governor. Nevertheless, public health officials say it could be a year before the city and rest of the state reach the herd immunity necessary to return to some sense of normal. Whatever that might look like going forward.
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That the two news conferences overlapped once again raises the question about how good the lines of communication are between those offices. It isn’t the first time they appeared to be out of sync.
Later in the day, Pritzker announced a first round of budget cuts totaling $700 million aimed at helping erase a projected $3.9 billion deficit, triggering a new round of partisan finger-pointing over who is to blame — beyond the pandemic — for the state’s sinking fortunes. Hiring freezes and spending cuts are in the offing. More are coming.
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But he also said “Congress needs to act.”
The latest iteration of a COVID-19 relief package coming out of Washington excludes aid to state and local governments. At a separate news conference, Lightfoot blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, as “heartless” for not pushing to help state and local governments who’ve seen their tax revenues dry up amid business shutdown orders to fight the virus.
The mayor said she’s urging Illinois’ U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, fellow Democrats, not to capitulate to McConnell who has balked at the local government aid as Democrats have pushed back over his pet provision to shield businesses against lawsuits over COVID-19-related negligence.
And former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg will be nominated by President-elect Joe Biden to be secretary of Transportation, the Tribune’s Bill Ruthhart reports. That shuts the door on former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel who lobbied behind-the-scenes for the gig.
Welcome to The Spin.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and others walk away from the podium after they provide an update on COVID-19 at the Office of Emergency Management and Communications in Chicago on March 11, 2020. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)
The first COVID-19 vaccines were administered in Illinois today and a Chicago emergency physician received the inaugural inoculation at the Loretto Hospital in the city’s Austin neighborhood. The Tribune’s Gregory Pratt and Stacy St. Clair have the details here.
Lightfoot said she felt like a kid on Christmas morning as another four health care workers were inoculated.
In Peoria, a smiling Gov. Pritzker declared, “This is a beginning for the state of Illinois” as the first vaccinations were given at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria.
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The Tribune’s Jamie Munks reports, Pritzker said the site was chosen to receive the first vaccines for the state’s event in part because the state’s strategic national stockpile is “nearby, and so this made it more convenient.” The state has not disclosed the exact location, citing security reasons.
The vaccination efforts will take up much of 2021, state public health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike and Chicago public health commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said at the separate news conferences. At the event in Chicago, Arwady said: “We’re probably going to be at it for another year before this virus is in the rearview mirror.”
Nationally the goal is herd immunity. Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief science adviser to Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government’s effort to get vaccines developed quickly, told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that about 75-80% of the U.S. population would need to be inoculated before folks should feel safe being in a crowd again.
Ezike acknowledged not everyone will be initially eager to get a shot: “I do imagine that as with any kind of activity that you’re trying to take on, there will be early adopters, there will be never adopters, there will be late adopters and there will be people in the middle,” she said.
“I know these people are hoping for some of those later or middle adopters to say, ‘Hey, I see someone who looks just like me, who does the same work I do, is from my community that’s getting this done, that’s from my state,’” Ezike said during the news conference in Peoria. “And so I imagine that there will be a big push toward later, maybe in the spring … And so there might be a big surge of people wanting the vaccine a little bit later, but I still think there are adequate numbers of people now, so this will be a continual process for much of 2021.”
Edward Hospital in Naperville and Elmhurst Hospital have delayed administration of COVID-19 vaccines because delivery of the doses was pushed back, a spokesman said. Pritzker was asked about it today and said “there was no delay” but rather some of the doses were scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday.
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What’s happening now: The state announced 7,359 new COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours and an additional 117 deaths.
In new social media video, bipartisan group of Midwestern governors urging residents to take COVID-19 precautions over the holidays, shop local: Pritzker, along with Democratic governors Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and Republican governors Eric Holcomb of Indiana and Mike DeWine of Ohio created a social media video to encourage everyone across the region to remain safe heading into the holiday season. “We must continue to protect one another,” Pritzker says at one point. Watch the video here. They also encouraged people to shop locally.
The group of governors created a similar video before Thanksgiving, urging residents to rethink traveling over the holiday.
Second COVID-19 vaccine, this one from Moderna and NIH, nears approval from FDA, The Associated Press reports.
At-home COVID-19 test kit allowed by FDA: Consumers could have results in 20 minutes, the AP reports in this piece.
Mercy Hospital closure proposal rejected by state board: The Chicago Sun-Times reports that before the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board voted on the matter, members heard four hours of public testimony. Among the critics? Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn who called the planned closing of a hospital during a pandemic “preposterous.”
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Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, gives an update about the COVID-19 vaccines and other pandemic news at City Hall on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
The Tribune’s Alice Yin writes: “The city of Chicago moved more than a dozen states to its most severe travel order designation, but people returning from those areas only need to quarantine for 10 days now, officials announced Tuesday.
“Based on the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance that those exposed to COVID-19 should quarantine for 10 days, not 14, travelers from “red” level states are mandated to follow the shorter requirement, according to a city news release.”
Mayor Lori Lighfoot and Gov. J.B Pritzker listen to the announcement of the U.S. Department of Energy's blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet, at a news conference at the University of Chicago's Harper Center on July 23, 2020. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
In announcing budget cuts today, Pritzker contended state Republicans need to offer their own balancing plan after helping create Illinois government’s financial instability even before the coronavirus sent tax revenues crashing, my Tribune colleagues report.
They note: Republicans quickly countered that the budget problems were self-inflicted by Democrats who enacted what Illinois House GOP leader Jim Durkin called a “fantasy budget” that did not receive voter approval of Pritzker’s proposed graduated-rate income tax and a “fingers crossed hope for a federal bailout” that has not materialized from Washington.
The cuts include $425 million in reductions in grants and operating costs across human service, health care, public safety, economic development, agriculture and other budget lines. Pritzker’s menu also included $75 million in “personnel cost adjustments” to be “developed through negotiations with the unions.”
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While he’s calling on Congress to act, rank-and-file Democrats in Washington sound resigned, as they try to hammer out a new COVID-19 relief package, to dropping, for now, their demand for fiscal relief for states and local governments, The Associated Press is reporting.
Republican lawmakers have pushed back on the measure as President Donald Trump has billed any kind of aid to state and local governments as a bailout for Democratic-run states and cities with long-standing fiscal woes.
Now, the AP reports, top Democratic allies of President-elect Joe Biden are backing a $748 billion plan offered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and hinted they won’t insist on a pitched battle for state and local aid now.
“I’m very disappointed by what I’m seeing,” Lightfoot said.
“I have made it very clear to our senators this is fundamentally unfair, unacceptable, and I expect our federal leadership to stand up and argue why federal, state and local funding absolutely must be part of a stimulus (package). If we give in — if we give in to the heartless Mitch McConnell on so many issues ... where’s the floor? We are setting a dangerous precedent for the future.”
Pritzker said during an afternoon news conference he, too, is “disappointed” but is hopeful that in the new year, the Biden administration and a new Congress might get the job done.
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Mayor Lori Lightfoot delivers her budget address on Oct. 21, 2020, in Council Chambers at City Hall. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
From the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt: “Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s law department attempted in court this week to block local news station WBBM-Ch. 2 from airing body camera footage of Chicago police officers raiding an innocent woman’s home and handcuffing her while she was naked.
“The city also filed a request to have the woman, Anjanette Young, sanctioned for allegedly violating a confidentiality order.
“Lightfoot officials made the extraordinary request to prevent a television station from airing a news report in an emergency court filing Monday evening, which a federal judge rejected. The courts long have ruled against efforts to prevent news companies from publishing reports, saying it’s an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.” Read the full story, including Lightfoot’s comments, here.
Other Chicago news: Lightfoot today called it “a mistake” for downtown aldermen to oppose her plan to fast-track a special property tax district for North Michigan Avenue, the Tribune’s John Byrne reports here. She says business owners on the Magnificent Mile want to pay into a fund to improve security following looting incidents there and coax shoppers back to the area during the pandemic, and called the move by downtown aldermen Brendan Reilly and Brian Hopkins to mothball it “aldermanic prerogative at its worst.” She was referring to the City Council tradition of members of the body following the wishes of local aldermen on issues affecting their wards.
Alderman fined by city’s Ethics Board for representing former colleague in criminal case: South Side Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st, who is also an attorney, was hit with the fine for representing former Ald. Joe Moreno, who faces charges of insurance fraud, disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice for a case involving him allegedly falsely reporting his car stolen. Byrne has that story, too, here.
Pritzker Foundation gives $10 million to develop diverse tech talent in Chicago: “This is a project to build a more inclusive economy and get more people the support they need,” said Penny Pritzker, former U.S. Commerce Secretary, sister to Gov. J.B. Pritzker and trustee of the family foundation. Robert Channick has more details here.
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Democratic presidential candidates former Vice President Joe Biden, left, and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg engage during a Democratic presidential primary debate on Feb. 19, 2020, in Las Vegas. (John Locher / AP)
During a lengthy primary season, they were vying to be the Democratic nominee for president.
Now “(f)ormer South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg will be nominated by President-elect Joe Biden to serve as secretary of Transportation, making him likely to become the first openly LGBTQ Cabinet secretary confirmed by the U.S. Senate,” the Tribune’s Bill Ruthhart writes.
“Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a leader, patriot, and problem-solver. He speaks to the best of who we are as a nation,” Biden said in a tweet Tuesday night. “I am nominating him for Secretary of Transportation because he’s equipped to take on the challenges at the intersection of jobs, infrastructure, equity and climate.”
Ruthhart notes: “The historic choice of Buttigieg, however, dealt a blow to former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, whose behind-the-scenes pursuit of the Transportation post was met with vocal opposition from top progressives and African Americans within the Democratic Party over his City Hall response to the 2014 police murder of Black teenager Laquan McDonald.” Read the full story here.
There are some reports that Emanuel might still be in line for an ambassadorship.
State politics: Illinois Rep. Kam Buckner (26th District) was elected chair of the Illinois House Legislative Black Caucus today. Immediately following the vote, he said: “I am privileged, honored, and humbled by the trust that my colleagues, the members of the Illinois House Legislative Black Caucus have placed in me to be the caucus chair for the 102nd General Assembly.”
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The caucus recently made headlines after it endorsed embattled House Speaker Michael Madigan’s bid for another term in the leadership post, saying in a statement that its members believe they are “in a more advantageous position” to deliver their priorities under his leadership, the Tribune’s Rick Pearson reported last week.
Thanks for reading The Spin, the Tribune’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to have it delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons. Have a tip? Email host Lisa Donovan at ldonovan@chicagotribune.com.
Twitter @byldonovan


chicagotribune--2020-12-16--Federal officials say monarch butterflies need protection under the Endangered Species Act, but they

Federal officials say monarch butterflies need protection under the Endangered Species Act, but they won’t get it this year

Ahead of the decision , some rights of way landowners signed on to voluntary agreements approved by the wildlife service @ @ @ @ @ a certain percentage of conservation actions on energy and transportation lands to support monarchs in @ @ @ @ @ implement other conservation actions .
For organizations that sign on , the agreements offer certainty @ @ @ @ @ asked of them even if a species is formally listed .

Monarch butterflies are still many flights away from federal protection.
The popular black and orange butterflies were determined to be warranted for listing under the Endangered Species Act, but they’ll have to wait behind others with higher priority, according to a Tuesday decision from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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Illinois’ state insect could be listed in the future. The wildlife service intends to propose listing the monarch as an endangered or threatened species in 2024, if the insect is still found to need protection. In the meantime, the monarch’s status will be reviewed each year and an emergency listing is also possible.
“It is never good news when we find that listing an animal or a plant is warranted,” said Charlie Wooley, the service’s regional director for the Great Lakes in a Tuesday news conference. “It means there are tough challenges ahead. But a little bit of a silver lining with monarchs is that all of the efforts to conserve the species across North America have made and continue to make a big difference. ”
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Monarchs’ populations dropped by hundreds of millions in the last 25 years, according to the wildlife service’s species status assessment report. The eastern population in North America, which supports about 90% of the population globally, is measured by the area the migratory monarchs occupy across winter clusters. Populations dipped from about 384 million in 1996 to 60 million last year. In 2013, they hit a low of 14 million.
The western population took a dive from about 1.2 million in 1997 to fewer than 30,000 butterflies last year. This year’s preliminary count shows there may be only 2,000 monarchs along California’s coast, said Lori Nordstrom, the wildlife service’s assistant regional director for ecological services.
To survive, the paper-thin insects must withstand drought, severe storms and rising temperatures, all exacerbated by human-fueled climate change. Insecticides are also a threat, as well as loss of milkweed and habitat — from herbicides, the conversion of grasslands to agriculture use, development and logging.
A monarch butterfly spreads its wings at Lurie Garden in Millennium Park in 2019. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
In the coming years, monarchs are expected to be more vulnerable to “catastrophic events” like severe storms and exposure to higher temperatures.
A national, coordinated effort is what’s ultimately needed to protect monarchs, said Tara Cornelisse, a senior scientist with The Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned to have the monarch listed in 2014. Instead, the monarch is stuck in limbo.
“What we can do now is, unfortunately, we kind of just watch what happens,” Cornelisse said.
Significant recovery of the species isn’t expected, Cornelisse said, so there’s hope monarchs may still be listed — ideally before 2024. Forty-seven species have gone extinct while waiting for protection under the act, she said.
There are nine species on the candidate list ahead of monarchs in the Great Lakes region, including the Blanding’s turtles and the Western fanshell freshwater mussel. Nationally, there are 161 species with higher priority.
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The Trump administration has listed the least since the act took effect in 1973, according to The Associated Press. Only 25 species have been listed in recent years, while the Obama administration added 360.
The administration has also made changes to the Endangered Species Act, which could have an effect on the monarch.
A mixed reaction to Tuesday’s news is fitting for a mixed decision, said Doug Stotz, a conservation ecologist at the Field Museum.
Not getting listed is disappointing because insects don’t have other protections, Stotz said. “Most birds have protection under the Migratory Bird Act and will receive some protection. Basically, a monarch doesn’t have anything, like all insects. So lack of endangered species protection is potentially an issue.”
At the same time, this intermediary step indicates monarch protection is serious, while giving stakeholders time to develop voluntary plans, Stotz said.
Across generations of metamorphoses, the great- or great-great offspring of earlier monarchs fly all the way to the mountains of Mexico and head north again in the spring. The monarchs we see in Illinois are just one piece of the eastern population’s life cycle.
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At this point, Stotz said he’s particularly concerned about the western population, which could have received much needed attention from listing. “Last year we were shocked when it was only 30,000,” he said.
Advocates say collective efforts to help the butterfly are more important than ever.
“Monarch conservation continues to require an all-hands-on-deck approach in all sectors across the continent,” Nordstrom said. “From the smallest backyard garden to landscape scale conservation, it will take all of us to ensure the future of the monarch.”
Earlier this year, a group of stakeholders representing farms, cities, roadsides and natural areas signed on to the Illinois Monarch Action Plan, part of a larger regional effort to add 1.3 billion stems of milkweed, necessary for monarchs’ survival. Illinois aims to add 150 million stems of the state wildflower by 2038.
Ahead of the decision, some rights of way landowners signed on to voluntary agreements approved by the wildlife service in which they commit to a certain percentage of conservation actions on energy and transportation lands to support monarchs in exchange for not having to implement other conservation actions. For organizations that sign on, the agreements offer certainty that no more will be asked of them even if a species is formally listed.
“I think this listing decision provides that further confidence that some energy companies and transportation agencies need to know that this mechanism, this agreement is out there to provide them those regulatory assurances and the operational flexibility that they would need when, if, the species eventually is listed,” said Iris Caldwell, the project’s coordinator and a program manager at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Energy Resources Center.
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The butterflies will be back in Illinois in spring, after migrating thousands of miles, stirring memories of school projects, community gardens and unforgettable moments.
Scott Baumgartner, of Lakeview, planted milkweed all around his property in southwest Wisconsin after learning years ago that monarchs were in jeopardy.
Now, when he sees one of the butterflies, he sometimes remembers the photos his mother once sent, from a morning in her Texas town when monarchs covered everything in sight. By the next morning, they were gone.
“There were butterflies everywhere,” Baumgartner said. “Every single inch of bush, tree limb, there was a butterfly clinging to it. It was just unbelievable.”


chicagotribune--2020-12-16--Aurora man charged with reckless homicide after fatal crash

The passenger in the vehicle , Lazaro Rosas-Garcia , 29 , was still inside the car , but was unconscious @ @ @ @ @ said .
Paramedics responded to the scene and transported Gutierrez-Aguilar and Rosas-Garcia to the hospital @ @ @ @ @ 1000 block of Rainwood Drive , was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital @ @ @ @

An Aurora man has been charged with reckless homicide after a passenger in his vehicle died during a crash in the city, officials said.
Gustavo Gutierrez-Aguilar, 35, of the first block of Margarets Lane, has also been charged with multiple counts of aggravated driving under the influence, Aurora police said in a news release.
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Gustavo Gutierrez-Aguilar. (Aurora Police Department / HANDOUT)
Aurora police officers were dispatched at 6:15 p.m. Sunday to Mountain Street and Austin Avenue on the city’s East Side for a single-vehicle crash. Officers found a car crashed into a tree and saw the driver, Gutierrez-Aguilar, outside the car, struggling to walk and maintain his balance, police said.
The responding officer said he could smell a strong odor of alcohol from Gutierrez-Aguilar’s breath, police said. Gutierrez-Aguilar was later found to have a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, police said.
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The passenger in the vehicle, Lazaro Rosas-Garcia, 29, was still inside the car, but was unconscious and not breathing, officials said. Paramedics responded to the scene and transported Gutierrez-Aguilar and Rosas-Garcia to the hospital. Rosas-Garcia, of the 1000 block of Rainwood Drive, was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital, police said.
Gutierrez-Aguilar was treated at a local hospital for his injuries and taken into custody upon his release. His bail was set at $500,000 and he remains in the Kane County jail, according to jail records.
He is due back in court Dec. 17.
mejones@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-12-16--Did Illinois see a post-Thanksgiving surge in COVID-19? The latest data offers a mixed picture.

“ We are starting to head in the right direction , ” Ezike said in her address to the public @ @ @ @ @ of you have sacrificed and employed all the public health mitigations , and I thank @ @ @ @ @ gotten us to where we are .
We still do have many more months to @ @ @ @ @ s continue toward that light at the end of the tunnel .
”

Nearly three weeks after Thanksgiving, no dramatic post-holiday surge in COVID-19 has emerged in the latest state data, although some hopeful trends seemed to stall after the long weekend.
“We haven’t seen something significant to talk about now,” the state’s health director, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, told reporters Monday. “We’ll see for sure in this coming week. ... We’ll keep our fingers crossed that maybe we’re not going to see a big bump.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker looks on as Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, speaks to reporters Dec. 15, 2020, after a nurse administered five Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccinations at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria. (Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times )
Before Thanksgiving, Ezike and other public health officials and medical experts urged residents to skip family gatherings, warning that the celebrations could become superspreader events. The virus that causes COVID-19 often hides in infectious people who aren’t showing symptoms, they noted, and it loves to spread indoors as unmasked people mingle closely — as they do over a holiday meal.
So some people stayed home for Thanksgiving 2020. Others celebrated with family, with varying attempts to be safe. And public health officials nervously waited to see the result.
With 2½ weeks of data now in hand, the Illinois numbers offer a mixed picture, complicated by regional differences. For example, in the state’s north region — basically west of McHenry and Kane counties to the Iowa border — both COVID-19 case numbers and the positivity rate for COVID-19 testing have dropped by nearly half since mid-November. But so did the availability of intensive care beds.
Much of the rest of the country is arguably experiencing a post-holiday surge, based on COVID-19 hospitalization rates. Illinois and nearly all its neighbors are among the minority of states seeing a drop in hospitalization rates since Thanksgiving, although Illinois’ rate still places it in the worst third of states.
Here’s what the numbers tell us, so far:
Case counts
Looking only at confirmed COVID-19 infections, it would appear no evidence has emerged yet of a holiday surge in Illinois.
Because case figures can be erratic from one day to the next, researchers typically compute a seven-day rolling average — often averaging one day’s figures with those seen during the three days before and three days after. In Illinois, the seven-day average of new cases peaked a month ago, at more than 12,000.
As Illinois’ infection curve rose in the fall, the state imposed restrictions. The curve appeared to bend as the state continued tightening rules, culminating in a Tier 3 designation on Nov. 20 that limited capacity in some businesses and closed others where people could congregate, including indoor dining and bars except for outdoor service.
By Thanksgiving, the average had dropped to near 10,000 new cases and, after a brief rise, has since dropped below 9,000. That’s still significantly more than in the summer, which at one point saw an average of fewer than 600 new confirmed cases a day, but it’s a positive trend nonetheless.
To compare different parts of the state, the Tribune calculated the number of new positive test results per 100,000 residents in each of the 11 regions established by the administration of Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
By this measure, all of the regions are generally trending better, including after Thanksgiving. Consider the west-central region, which covers most counties around Springfield and west to the Mississippi River. Its rate peaked above 150 cases per 100,000 people but has since dropped below 100 — still the highest rate of any region, but far lower than before.
Other trends appear more muddled. Chicago, for example, saw its rate fall after Thanksgiving, only to slightly increase the next week, leading Chicago’s health director to suggest the city was seeing a post-holiday surge. But only one Illinois region — the south, roughly from Mount Vernon to the state’s southern tip — saw an overall increase in its new case rate after the holiday.
Public health officials and researchers have cautioned that new case counts alone can’t tell the whole story of the virus’s spread because the vast majority of infected people don’t get tested. So their cases are never recorded.
Also, around the holidays, the numbers may fluctuate based on when people choose to get tested and when labs can process the results.
Positivity rate
To try to account for the up-and-down nature of testing, government officials and researchers turn to another metric: the percentage of tests coming back positive, again based on a seven-day rolling average. The lower the rate, the better.
Here’s where the results are more upbeat, at least for regions outside the Chicago area. The rate drops that began in early to mid-November seemed to stall after Thanksgiving, but then resumed dropping in the past week. For example, the worst region in this group — the north — topped out near a 21% positivity rate, hovered near 15% in the week after Thanksgiving, and has since dropped to near 11%.
That’s still high. The World Health Organization recommends that the positivity rate should fall below 5% before loosening restrictions. Still, the north region’s rate has been halved within a month, with others also showing notable drops.
The data is less consistent for Chicago and the regions surrounding it.
In the city and three surrounding regions, the positivity rate started dropping in mid-November and flattened out after Thanksgiving at roughly 12% to 13%. Their rates have bobbed up and down since then.
The only Chicago-area region seeing a continued drop — both before and after Thanksgiving — is the one encompassing Will and Kankakee counties. It was once the worst in the Chicago area on this measure, but its positivity rate is now similar to that seen in the other Chicago-area regions.
Hospitalizations
COVID-19 hospitalizations offer a relatively consistent way to monitor the spread of the virus, but this statistic also is known as a lagging indicator because it takes time for infected people to become sick enough to require hospital treatment.
In Illinois, hospitalizations peaked in most regions around Thanksgiving, reflecting trends seen with cases and positivity rates a week or so earlier.
Nationally, Illinois is still one of the states with the highest hospitalization rates, near 40 hospitalized COVID-19 patients per 100,000 residents as of Monday, according to a Tribune analysis of data collected by the COVID Tracking Project. Neighboring Indiana and Missouri were higher yet, at 46 and 43 respectively.
But Illinois’ statewide hospitalization rate has dropped 16% since Thanksgiving. That’s consistent with declines seen across the upper middle part of the country, as the surge spreads south and to the coasts. Some states in those areas have seen rates roughly double since the holiday.
One caveat with the Illinois numbers is that hospitals have become more choosy about who gets a bed, including sending some ER patients home with monitoring gear instead of admitting them.
The bigger concern has been whether the sickest of the sick patients — those needing intensive care — will overwhelm hospitals’ ICU wards.
Despite the overall decline in COVID-19 hospitalization rates, the seven-day rolling average of available ICU beds dropped in all of the state’s regions in November and remains low in most.
The state sets a threshold of concern at 20% availability, and the rolling average was below that in suburban Cook and in the region encompassing DuPage and Kane counties. Outside the Chicago area, ICU availability fell below 20% in four of six regions: north-central, west-central, Metro East and south.
These numbers don’t show the situation on the ground level, from hospital to hospital. The Illinois Department of Public Health has declined to provide data on individual hospitals — and declined to explain why.
But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did release data for each hospital recently, showing wide disparities in how many virus patients hospitals have admitted and how full their ICUs have become.
Ultimately, public health officials and advocates have said, Illinois remains in a precarious spot — with more potential holiday gatherings around the corner that could quickly send the infection curve back up.
“We are starting to head in the right direction,” Ezike said in her address to the public Tuesday. “So many of you have sacrificed and employed all the public health mitigations, and I thank you, that that has gotten us to where we are. We still do have many more months to go, but let’s continue toward that light at the end of the tunnel.”
Chicago Tribune’s Dan Petrella contributed.
jmahr@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-12-16--Civilian oversight agency concludes investigation into fatal shooting of man running from Chicago po

Civilian oversight agency concludes investigation into fatal shooting of man running from Chicago police

The Police Department has 60 days to respond , with a possible 30-day extension , from the day it received @ @ @ @ @ the end of November .
The department can respond by either agreeing or disagreeing with @ @ @ @ @ and then the case may proceed to the Chicago Police Board .

The civilian oversight agency that investigates possible misconduct by Chicago police says it has finished its investigation into the fatal shooting of Maurice Granton Jr. as he ran from officers in Bronzeville in 2018.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability would not disclose its findings but has submitted them to the Police Department, an indication the agency may have concluded that the shooting violated policy and wants the department to review any recommended discipline.
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Granton’s family has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit alleging he was shot in the back while unarmed and posed no danger to police. Their attorney said he believes the findings will show the shooting was unjustified.
Andrew M. Stroth said the state’s attorney’s office should investigate the case for possible criminal charges. “At the moment in which Maurice Granton was shot and killed, he was unarmed and his hands were visible,” the lawyer said. “It’s another unarmed Black man shot in the back.”
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COPA cannot publicly release the findings of an investigation until the department reviews it, under orders issued by the Office of Inspector General, said COPA spokesman Ephraim Eaddy.
The Police Department has 60 days to respond, with a possible 30-day extension, from the day it received the findings, which was the end of November. The department can respond by either agreeing or disagreeing with the findings and recommendations, and then the case may proceed to the Chicago Police Board.
Chicago police shot and killed Maurice Granton Jr. on June 6, 2018, after what police described as an "armed confrontation" on the South Side of Chicago. (Family photo)
The shooting happened on June 6, 2018, as a plainclothes tactical officer was working a drug investigation. According to the department’s version of events, the officer stopped Granton, 24, but he ignored officers’ orders to stop, pulled a gun and was shot by the officer in the 4700 block of South Prairie. A 9 mm handgun was recovered at the scene.
Police body camera footage released by COPA a month after the shooting shows Granton being shot in the back as he scaled a fence.
“If you watch the video evidence of the shooting from the officer’s own body camera, it’s obvious that it’s an unjustified shooting,” Stroth said. “Two young girls no longer have their father because of the unjustified use of lethal force.
“The video speaks for itself,” he added. “There is clearly a pattern and practice of access and lethal force used by Chicago police officers.”
COPA reviewed statements by officer and civilian witnesses, medical records, Office of Emergency Management radio transmissions, 911 calls and worked with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the Illinois State Police for an in-depth forensic analysis of the evidence, according to a COPA statement.
Police spokesman Don Terry said the department “recently received it and it’s under review.”
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The officer who fired the fatal shots is still employed by the department, Terry said.
pfry@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @paigexfry


chicagotribune--2020-12-16--Pritzker lays out $700 million in cuts, blasts GOP for failing to offer alternatives after working t

Pritzker lays out $700 million in cuts, blasts GOP for failing to offer alternatives after working to scuttle graduated income tax

“ I want to make sure the General Assembly comes to the table with their potential cuts and then we @ @ @ @ @ are during that process , ” Pritzker said .
“ But so far , particularly @ @ @ @ @ so hard to defeat the best solution for this , have literally no solutions .
@ @ @ @ @ the table .
I ’ m waiting for them .
”

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker laid out more than $700 million in cuts Tuesday to deal with a projected $3.9 billion budget deficit, contending Republicans need to offer their own plan and blaming them for playing a role in destabilizing state finances even before the pandemic sent tax revenues crashing.
Republicans quickly countered that the budget problems were self-inflicted by Democrats who enacted what Illinois House GOP leader Jim Durkin called a “fantasy budget” that hinged on voter approval of Pritzker’s proposed graduated-rate income tax and a “fingers crossed hope for a federal bailout” that has not materialized.
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Pritzker said his $711.2 million menu of cuts could be implemented through executive action. He said the cuts represented only a first round and wants lawmakers to authorize additional reductions. His plan includes $425 million in reductions in grants and operating costs across human services, health care, public safety, economic development, agriculture and other budget lines.
It also includes $75 million in “personnel cost adjustments” to be “developed through negotiations with the unions.” Pritzker said the administration would seek furloughs and wage adjustments.
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Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker speaks during a daily news conference regarding the coronavirus pandemic and other issues on Nov. 4, 2020, at the Thompson Center in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, the state’s largest public employees’ union, immediately warned against trying to balance the budget on the backs of state workers.
Even as Pritzker lauded the first COVID-19 vaccinations of Illinois health care workers at his daily pandemic briefing at the James R. Thompson Center, he sought to inoculate himself and other Democrats from fallout for budget cuts by trying to pin the blame on Republicans in a harshly partisan attack.
He blasted GOP legislators and his predecessor, one-term GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner, for racking up a multibillion-dollar bill backlog during the state’s two-year budget impasse. And he once again fumed at Republicans for their role in the defeat of the constitutional amendment to shift Illinois from a flat-rate income tax to a graduated-rate system that would have generated an additional $3.4 billion on a yearly basis.
“It’s been two years since Republicans announced their wholesale opposition to the ‘fair tax’ and it’s been 40 days since the election, and they have yet to produce any viable answer for balancing the budget,” Pritzker said.
“They worked and spent endlessly to defeat the best option Democrats put on the table and, after all their bluster, it turns out that Republicans have no plan at all to put the state on a firm fiscal foundation,” he said.
“In the wake of their deafening silence, our challenge remains,” Pritzker said.
Specifically, Pritzker said the $3.9 billion deficit represented $2 billion in lost tax receipts due to restrictions imposed to deal with the pandemic, including business and job losses. The remainder of the deficit, he said, was due to a systemic imbalance between spending and revenue.
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Illinois plans to borrow another $2 billion from the Federal Reserve’s municipal liquidity fund, which was created to help governments, after earlier borrowing $1.2 billion from the program and repaying $200 million, Bloomberg News reported.
The state had originally authorized borrowing $5 billion from the program. Loans must be repaid over a three-year period, and state officials had planned on using new federal stimulus funds for state and local governments to repay the borrowings.
But the latest COVID-19 relief proposal from Washington does not include any stimulus money for state and local governments. Pritzker blasted Senate Republicans who have rejected such aid and said he looked forward to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration to push for state and local funding in the new Congress and administration.
In the meantime, Pritzker said he had reached out to legislative leaders for their input on areas to implement cuts. He had previously warned that voter defeat of the graduated-rate tax proposal would result in “painful” cuts.
“I want to make sure the General Assembly comes to the table with their potential cuts and then we’ll see where we are during that process,” Pritzker said. “But so far, particularly the Republicans, who worked so hard to defeat the best solution for this, have literally no solutions. They have not come to the table. I’m waiting for them.”
Durkin, the state House GOP leader from Western Springs, said Republicans repeatedly warned Pritzker and Democratic legislative leaders about the “dire shortfalls” in the state budget.
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“Instead of living within our means, they attempted to trick voters into raising taxes, and were sorely rejected by Democrat, Republican and independent voters across the state,” Durkin said in a statement.
State Sen. Dan McConchie of Hawthorn Woods, who will become Senate GOP leader in the next General Assembly, said Pritzker and Democrats used a budget that relied on “magic money” that never materialized.
McConchie said that for Pritzker, the state’s financial problems were “a bed of his own making” and that he should heed voter rejection of his graduated tax as a “lack of trust in state government” stemming from years of Democrats raising taxes.
Pritzker’s initial menu of cuts shied away from funding dealing with pandemic relief and health care initiatives as well as the always delicate issue of state school aid.
His list largely included bureaucratic savings achieved through freezes on hiring, travel and purchases; suspension of grants; cost savings at state prisons due to a lower offender population under civil-justice reforms; and included COVID-19 savings from canceled state and county fairs, and spending on state parks.
But it does count on $75 million in savings through negotiations with state employee unions, including AFSCME, which was a strong supporter of Pritzker and of his proposed graduated tax amendment.
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Roberta Lynch, executive director of AFSCME Council 31, said it was “grossly unjust to suggest that front line state employees who have already sacrificed so much in our current public health crisis should bear an outsized share of the burden of fixing the state’s fiscal crisis as well.”
Tribune reporters Jamie Munks and Dan Petrella contributed
rap30@aol.com


chicagotribune--2020-12-15--Coronavirus in Illinois updates: First COVID-19 vaccinations in state given as 7,359 new cases and 1

Coronavirus in Illinois updates: First COVID-19 vaccinations in state given as 7,359 new cases and 117 additional deaths reported Tuesday

“ I know these people are helping for some of those later or middle adopters to say ‘ Hey , @ @ @ @ @ just like me , who does the same work do , is from my community @ @ @ @ @ done , that ’ s from my state , ’ `` she said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ there will be a big push toward later , maybe in the spring… And so @ @ @ @ @ surge of people wanting the vaccine a little bit later , but I still think @ @ @ @ @ people now , so this will be a continual process for much of 2021 .
@

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Laquitta Boyd, holds her 6-year-old daughter Venisha while receiving her first COVID-19 vaccination at a back-to-school health fair hosted by RUSH University Medical Center at the Salvation Army Freedom Center on July 30, 2022, in Chicago. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
Illinois medical workers started receiving their initial doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine that federal regulators approved for emergency use late last week, a day after the state received its first shipments of the vaccine and a day after many states began their immunizations.
Inoculations were given Tuesday morning at Loretto Hospital in the Austin community, where the death rate dwarfs the citywide average.
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Vaccinations also began at a hospital in Peoria, with the governor in attendance. Vaccinations planned Tuesday for Edward Hospital in Naperville and Elmhurst Hospital were postponed at least until Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration said in documents posted online that its initial review confirmed the effectiveness and safety of a second vaccine developed by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health, bringing the shot to the cusp of authorization.
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Outside experts will offer their recommendation on that vaccine Thursday, with a final FDA decision expected soon thereafter.
Also on Tuesday, state officials announced 7,359 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 117 additional fatalities, bringing the total number of known infections in Illinois to 863,477 and the statewide death toll to 14,509 since the start of the pandemic.
Here’s what’s happening Tuesday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:
7:37 p.m.: Illinois starts administering COVID-19 vaccine amid optimism and thoughts of the disease’s victims
As the first COVID-19 vaccine administered in Illinois was plunged into Dr. Marina Del Rios’ left arm Tuesday, she thought about all the people who didn’t live to see the historic day.
Her former patients. The health care workers who treated the virus and lost their lives because of it. The friend who died in the early days of the pandemic.
“I can’t give you a total number of the people I know who have died or lost loved ones. I’ve stopped counting,” said Del Rios, the social emergency medicine director at the University of Illinois Hospital. “You never want any lives to be lost, but so many at the same time weighs even heavier on you.”
Del Rios and four other health care workers received Chicago’s first COVID vaccinations Tuesday at Loretto Hospital, the first step in a national effort to blunt a pandemic that has killed 1.6 million people and sickened nearly 73 million worldwide. Five health care workers in Peoria were also given shots at an event attended by the governor. Read more here. — Jamie Munks, Stacy St. Clair, Dan Petrella, Lisa Schencker and Gregory Pratt
4:37 p.m.: Chicago travel order now only requires 10-day quarantine for ‘red’ tier states, which will no longer include Iowa
The city of Chicago moved more than a dozen states to its most severe travel order designation, but people returning from those areas only need to quarantine for 10 days now, officials announced Tuesday.
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Based on the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance that those exposed to COVID-19 should quarantine for 10 days, not 14, travelers from “red” level states are mandated to follow the shorter requirement, according to a city press release.”
Regardless of category, people are urged to avoid non-essential travel and to follow standard COVID-19 mitigation practices such as wearing a mask, washing hands frequently, and social distancing,” the press release said.
As of Friday, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia will be bumped up to the red tier.
But Iowa is moving down to the “orange designation” that allows travelers to avoid the quarantine if they receive a negative test result before coming into the city.
That makes the total 31 red states and 17 orange states plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. New to the orange list will be Maine and Vermont. Only one state, Hawaii, remains “yellow,” meaning there are no additional testing or quarantine requirements.
Up until last month, any state averaging an infection rate higher than 15 daily cases per 100,000 residents over a seven-day period was added to the city’s list. Then the city revamped its travel order introduced during the Fourth of July weekend to require a quarantine only from people coming from red-tier states, or those with higher COVID-19 case rates than Chicago. The city is now at 60 cases per 100,000 residents.
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Those coming from orange states, which have numbers between 15 cases-per-100,000 and Chicago’s rate of 60-per-100,000 should get a negative COVID-19 test result no more than 72 hours before arriving or quarantine for 10 days. Those coming from the one yellow state must only observe regular social distancing and mask rules.
The travel order is updated every two weeks and goes into effect the following Friday. Read more here. — Alice Yin
4:25 p.m.: Chicago Public Schools’ reopening plan uncertain as hearing on teachers union injunction request looms
Major decisions could be made about Chicago Public Schools this week related to its coronavirus response and plans to resume in-person learning.
The Chicago Board of Education is set to vote on extending its emergency COVID-19 spending authorization until March, allowing the district to take on costs tied to the pandemic without the usual approval process. So far, CPS reports it has spent about $132 million on coronavirus measures, including $68 million of the $75 million earmarked for emergencies. If approved by the board, the extension would give CPS three additional months to spend the remaining $7 million. Read more here. — Hannah Leone
(Updated) 4:04 p.m.: Second stimulus check updates: Talks escalate on long-delayed COVID-19 aid package, top lawmakers to meet
Talks on a long-delayed COVID-19 aid package intensified Tuesday as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi summoned other top congressional leaders for a potentially critical meeting.
Pelosi, D-Calif., spoke with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for more than an hour, her office tweeted, and Mnuchin will join the make-or-break meeting of Capitol Hill’s “big four” leaders by phone.
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The uptick in activity could be a sign that an agreement is near, though COVID-19 relief talks have been notoriously difficult. Read more here. — Associated Press
3:12 p.m.: Evanston and Skokie health departments wait for call on COVID-19 vaccines: ‘It’s like the bat phone. If it rings, then you go and get it.’
Public health officials in Evanston and Skokie are waiting for the call that doses of the much anticipated COVID-19 vaccine are ready for pick up.
For now, local officials are preparing for that call to come and expect that it could be sometime this week. Other details, like where they will be sent to retrieve it, are also up in the air, said Greg Olsen, public health manager for the city of Evanston. Read more here. — Genevieve Bookwalter, Pioneer Press
1:35p.m.: Pritzker calls vaccinations in Peoria ‘a beginning for the state of Illinois’
Gov. J.B. Pritzker called Tuesday’s vaccinations in Peoria “a beginning for the state of Illinois.”
He also discussed security precautions for the state’s vaccine supply. The Illinois State Police and local law enforcement are working “to make sure that at every step of the way these vaccines are protected once they arrive in the state” and are distributed to the places where they will be administered, Pritzker said.
“I met with the state troopers that were at the (Strategic National Stockpile) yesterday and they escort these vaccines as they move from the SNS to these regional hospitals that also have ultracold storage,” Pritzker said. “And then local law enforcement typically are accompanying the local health departments as they pick up the vaccines.”
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Pritzker said the OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria was chosen to receive the first vaccines for the state’s event in part because the state’s strategic national stockpile is “nearby, and so this made it more convenient.” The state has not disclosed the exact location, citing security reasons.
It wasn’t clear how many vaccinations would be administered across the state on Tuesday, but the state and the city of Chicago received vaccine shipments, and additional shipments are expected to arrive at four county health departments this week.
The state’s top public health official, Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said 96 hospitals in Illinois will be administering vaccines this week. The hospitals are associated with the 50 counties in the state with the highest per capita death rates, the metric Pritzker’s administration chose for distributing the state’s initial shipment to frontline health care workers.
Some rural counties without hospitals are on the list, while the counties where designated vaccine downstate distribution hubs are located in Peoria, Springfield and Champaign initially were not. But the state updated its plan to include hospitals where people from those rural counties would be most likely to go.
“That’s just for this week, and of course there will be subsequent pushes every single week,” Ezike said Tuesday. “By next week all hospitals will be engaged in the effort. This is just the beginning. Patience will be the name of the game but we will get this out to all of our workers in the health care setting.”
Ezike said the state is likely to spend most of next year on its vaccination efforts, and acknowledged not everyone will be initially eager to get a shot.
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“I do imagine that as with any kind of activity that you’re trying to take on, there will be early adopters, there will be never adopters, there will be late adopters and there will be people in the middle,” she said.
“I know these people are helping for some of those later or middle adopters to say ‘Hey, I see someone who looks just like me, who does the same work do, is from my community that’s getting this done, that’s from my state,’ " she said. “And so I imagine that there will be a big push toward later, maybe in the spring… And so there might be a big surge of people wanting the vaccine a little bit later, but I still think there are adequate numbers of people now, so this will be a continual process for much of 2021.”
The Pfizer vaccine requires two shots, the initial one and a booster about three weeks later. Ezike said those who received their first doses will not be “appropriately covered, or immune from the single shot.”
“We don’t have actual data to say what happens if you don’t get that second because the plan is to have that booster after 21 days,” Ezike said. “It’s an important step but there’s still absolutely another step as well as the continued mitigations that have to continue. I hope that all the people who are watching this have confidence that this is a vaccine that they should take as well.”
—Jamie Munks
12:20 p.m.: Fourth person to receive vaccine in Peoria said she felt ‘awesome’ afterwards
Evelyn Tatum, the fourth person to receive the vaccine in Peoria, said she felt “awesome” afterwards, but that she will continue to operate as she has been to this point in the pandemic.
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“I’ll be wearing my mask until I’m told I can take it off,” Tatum said. “And I will just be so happy. I will be so happy.”
“It’s been something. It really has been something, working with all this,” she said. “I’ve been here since the beginning, I’ve been through it all, never took any time off. I just wear what I have to wear, my PPE, and just went on with my life and my job. It really didn’t change much of anything, I just did what I had to do. I’m a healthy woman, and as long as I follow the rules, anybody follows the rules, you’ll be OK. I’m a big believer in that.”
—Jamie Munks
12:15 p.m.: 7,359 new confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases and 117 additional deaths reported
Illinois health officials on Tuesday announced 7,359 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 117 additional fatalities, bringing the total number of known infections in Illinois to 863,477 and the statewide death toll to 14,509 since the start of the pandemic.
Officials also reported 92,922 new tests in the last 24 hours. The seven-day statewide rolling positivity rate for cases as a share of total tests was 8.6% for the period ending Monday.
—Chicago Tribune staff
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11:57 a.m.: Certified nursing assistant first to receive a shot in Peoria
Chemica Jones, 41, a certified nursing assistant at OSF HealthCare St. Francis Medical Center was the first to receive a shot in Peoria.
Jones works with COVID patients “on a day to day basis,” she said in an interview after receiving the first dose of the state’s vaccine supply.
“At first I was a little nervous but once I got here, and realized ‘OK Chemica you’re here to do your part, this is what you were put here for,’” Jones said. “I just want to do my part for my community, for my family, just make sure I keep everyone safe. I know people are optimistic about the vaccine but it’s OK to be nervous. It’s okay to be scared, but once you get it you’ll realize It made a difference. I’m stopping the spread of the virus.’”
Also vaccinated in Peoria were Juan Fernandez, a transporter, Doug Meyer, a respiratory therapist, Evelyn Tatum, who works in Environmental Services at the medical center and Victor Chan, chief of Emergency Services at OSF HealthCare St. Francis Medical Center.
—Jamie Munks
11:42 a.m.: Peoria health workers first to get vaccines from Illinois’ supply
Five health care workers in Peoria were the first to receive the state of Illinois’ share of the coronavirus vaccine shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday, with Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike looking on at OSF St. Francis, Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center in Peoria.
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“I think everyone has reason to be excited that we are at the beginning of the end,” Ezike said after the shots had been administered.
COVID 19 vaccines are being administered to health care workers in Peoria this morning, with @GovPritzker and Dr. Ezike looking on. pic.twitter.com/Y75fQkAxAJ — Jamie Munks (@by_jamiemunks) December 15, 2020
—Jamie Munks
11:05 a.m.: Chicago administers first doses of coronavirus vaccines
Five frontline medical workers received the vaccine against COVID-19 in Chicago, marking an important milestone in the fight against coronavirus.
“What we just witnessed is history in the making,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said during a ceremony at Loretto Hospital in the city’s hard-hit Austin neighborhood.
The first person to receive the vaccine was Dr. Marina Del Rios, from the University of Illinois health system.
Chicago public health commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady led a small ceremony for five recipients where she emphasized the vaccine’s safety and discussed the process used to store it. Officials gave five doses to start, because that’s how many are in a vial, she said.
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After the first vaccination, the room applauded.
Mark Hooks, an emergency department nurse at Loretto, was the third person — and first Illinois man — to receive the vaccination. In April, he told the Tribune about the grueling decision to isolate himself from his two school-age daughters was the hardest part of his job.
Though Hooks joined them for socially distant activities such as bike riding and street hockey, there were no meals shared, no watching movies together on the couch.
“There is a lot of Zoom and a lot of Houseparty, but it’s just not the same,” he said. “Even harder than being scared about coming to work every day is not being able to be with them.”
Read more here. — Gregory Pratt, Stacy St. Clair
11:01 a.m.: Busting COVID-19 vaccine myths
If you want an idea of the conspiracy theories that hang over COVID-19 vaccines, there’s no better summation than a 40-second TikTok video posted in October by a performer named Taylor Rousseau.
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As a melodramatic song plays, Rousseau, young, blonde and elaborately mascaraed, silently portrays a woman beaten to death for refusing to take a vaccine that contains a microchip carrying the mark of the beast. At the end, she enters a heavenly skyscape emblazoned with the words: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
The video has been seen more than 680,000 times, garnered 47,000 likes and, despite thousands of mocking comments (“Ma’am, this is a CVS”), earned plenty of positive reviews.
“This is so incredibly powerful,” one viewer wrote.
Therein lies a challenge for public health officials trying to convince a wary portion of the public that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. Phony assertions have circulated for months on social media, joining a current of anti-vaccine sentiment that has grown stronger over the last 20 years.
A poll released last week showed that only 47% of Americans plan to get the vaccine. Those who didn’t want it mostly said they were concerned about side effects and the development and approval process, though the poll didn’t ask about many widely circulating myths. As the rollout begins, there are common myths about the COVID-19 vaccine and what experts have to say about them.
You can read about them here. —John Keilman
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9:25 a.m.: COVID-19 vaccine administration delayed at Naperville’s Edward Hospital
Naperville’s Edward Hospital has delayed administration of COVID-19 vaccines because delivery of the doses to the hospital was pushed back, a hospital spokesman said.
The hospital is now anticipating receiving the vaccines Wednesday.
The Edward-Elmhurst Health System, which also includes Elmhurst Hospital, had planned to begin administering the vaccines to employees Tuesday. This morning, spokesman Keith Hartenberger said administration had been delayed at both hospitals.
When it does receive the vaccines, the system expects to receive 3,900 doses, which it will split evenly between employees at Edward and Elmhurst hospitals. Frontline workers caring for patients with COVID-19 and emergency department employees will receive priority for the vaccine, though it will be available to all employees, Hartenberger has said.
The first shipment will cover employees’ first doses. A required second dose will be provided from later shipments.
Read more here. —Sarah Freishtat, Naperville Sun
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7:15 a.m.: First COVID-19 vaccines administered in Chicago to be given at Loretto Hospital in Austin neighborhood, vaccinations also slated for other state hotspots
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and city health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady will join hospital officials at the Loretto Hospital in the Austin neighborhood Tuesday morning to witness the ceremonial first COVID-19 vaccination in Chicago.
The event, coming a day after many states began administering the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, will be livestreamed on local news sites and the mayor’s Facebook page. It wasn’t clear how many people will receive the first vaccines at Loretto. Chicago had been scheduled to receive 23,000 doses of the vaccine this week, reserved for medical workers and at-risk residents of longterm care facilities.
The Austin neighborhood’s COVID-19 death and case rate far outstrip the city’s average. Vaccinations also were slated to begin Tuesday at hospitals in Naperville, Elmhurst and Peoria.— Chicago Tribune staff
5 a.m.: Illinois schools have tallied more than 160 outbreaks of COVID-19. But what happens when they occur, and who decides if a school should close?
After a string of COVID-19 cases were reported at The School of Saints Faith, Hope and Charity in Winnetka last month, school officials dutifully notified the Cook County Department of Public Health and were soon delivered some troubling news.
The Roman Catholic elementary school had met the criteria for an outbreak, thrusting a thorny health and safety decision into the hands of the principal and the Archdiocese of Chicago about whether to halt in-person instruction.
“We decided to immediately pivot to e-learning for a temporary period, because first and foremost is the safety of our students and staff, and we just didn’t want to take the risk,” said Justin Lombardo, the leader of the archdiocese’s COVID-19 task force, who said students have been back in the classroom at the North Shore school since Nov. 30.
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Since the beginning of the pandemic, 163 such school-based outbreaks have been reviewed in the state, including nine reported Friday by the Illinois Department of Public Health. But while the state is now posting such numbers online — and health departments are assisting schools with surveillance of cases, contact tracing and guidance — it still falls to school officials to make the biggest decision: Does the school need to shut down again?
Read more here. — Karen Ann Cullotta
5 a.m.: Hope at a historic moment: First COVID-19 vaccinations scheduled to be given in Illinois on Tuesday
The first COVID-19 vaccinations in Illinois are scheduled to be administered Tuesday, bringing a sense of hope along with the most significant action yet to blunt a pandemic that has killed more than 14,000 people statewide.
Amid a massive distribution effort that will take several days to reach medical centers in more than four dozen counties, Chicago selected a hospital in one of its hardest-hit neighborhoods to administer the city’s first shot. The vaccination will be given Tuesday morning at Loretto Hospital in the Austin community, where the death rate dwarfs the citywide average.
“The Loretto Hospital and our colleagues at safety net hospitals across the city have been in the trenches of Chicago’s battle against COVID since day one,” Loretto President and CEO George Miller said. “We are honored to play a part in this historic moment, on behalf of all the front-line health care providers, our heroes, and our brothers and sisters so disproportionately impacted by this pandemic. We look forward to turning this corner, together.”
The vaccinations also were slated to begin Tuesday at hospitals in Naperville, Elmhurst and Peoria.
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Read the full story here. — Dan Petrella, Sarah Freishtat, Stacy St. Clair, Lisa Schencker, Lisa Donovan, Gregory Pratt And Jamie Munks
5 a.m.: Cook County officials investigating south suburban youth wrestling tournament featuring out-of-state teams
A wrestling tournament featuring several Midwestern teams in Lynwood over the weekend, is being investigated by Cook County officials and got the attention of Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Cook County spokesman Don Bolger said the village of Lynwood has cited the Ho-Chunk Nation Southland Center for hosting the King of the Ring Christmas Bash Saturday and Sunday, which brought hundreds of grapplers from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and other states. Bolger said that the village did not specify which violations were cited and Lynwood Mayor Eugene Williams did not return calls seeking comment.
Pritzker, who spent a good chunk of his news conference Monday giving details about the COVID-19 vaccine, commented about the tournament.
”I would just say putting parents, teachers and coaches and the kids in danger is a terrible idea,” Pritzker said. “Especially when we are experiencing a number of deaths per day in the United States that is equivalent to a 9/11 every day.”
Read more here. — Daily Southtown
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chicagotribune--2020-12-15--Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration tried to block TV station from airing body camera footage of p

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration tried to block TV station from airing body camera footage of police raid on wrong home

Previously , the Illinois attorney general ’ s office ruled the City Council violated the state ’ s open meetings @ @ @ @ @ series of conference calls with Lightfoot during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic .
@ @ @ @ @ to release the inspector general ’ s report on the night former police Superintendent Eddie @ @ @ @ @ his car after drinking at a downtown bar known for heavy pours , despite calls @ @ @ @ @ and some aldermen to do so .

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Law Department attempted in court this week to block local news station WBBM-Ch. 2 from airing body camera footage of Chicago police officers raiding an innocent woman’s home and handcuffing her while she was naked.
The city also filed a request to have the woman, Anjanette Young, sanctioned for allegedly violating a confidentiality order.
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Lightfoot officials made the extraordinary request to prevent a television station from airing a news report in an emergency court filing Monday evening, which a federal judge rejected. The courts long have ruled against efforts to prevent news companies from publishing reports, saying it’s an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.
CBS, which has reported extensively on Chicago police officers raiding the wrong home, aired the interview with Young and body camera footage late Monday.
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But before the report aired, Lightfoot lawyers wrote in a filing that Young received the video as part of her lawsuit against the city and released it to CBS despite a federal judge’s protective order.
Because of that, Lightfoot lawyers argued that Young should be sanctioned by the court.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot holds a news conference Nov. 24, 2020, at City Hall. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Asked at an unrelated news conference on Tuesday whether she supports sanctions against the woman, Lightfoot told reporters, “I can’t comment on that. A federal judge put rules in place. It’s for that judge to determine whether or not that was appropriate.”
The mayor also tried to put distance between herself and the incident, saying the raid took place before she was elected, even though the city kept the video secret under her administration. Later, Lightfoot released a statement saying she “had no knowledge” of the matter involving Young until Tuesday.
“I had a very emotional reaction to what was depicted on the video as I imagine that many people did,” Lightfoot said in a release, which did not address why her administration was trying to punish the woman for allegedly sharing the video.
Late Tuesday evening, law department spokeswoman Kathleen Fieweger released a statement saying the city felt “an obligation” to report that the video had been shared despite a confidentiality order. The statement noted that the judge would be setting a hearing soon “regarding the lawyer’s alleged conduct,” though the law department’s request for sanctions singled out “the plaintiff.”
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Mayor Rahm Emanuel famously fought to keep secret a video showing white police Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting Black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times, but a county judge ordered his administration to release the video. He has since been dogged by accusations that he covered up the scandal to preserve his 2015 reelection campaign, an allegation he’s denied.
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Chicago has since instituted a rule allowing the release of police shooting videos and audio within 60 days, but footage from other incidents such as the raid on Young’s home can be kept secret for months or even years.
In an interview with the Tribune, Young’s attorney, Keenan Saulter, criticized the city for its handling of the situation. He said Young first filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking copies of the footage in November 2019.
Chicago police initially asked for a copy of her driver’s license, before denying the woman’s request, saying the matter remains under investigation. Saulter said he believes the city’s motivation was more about keeping an embarrassing incident secret.
“This city has a history of attempting to cover up unfavorable video,” Saulter said. “That’s all we’re dealing with here.”
Saulter said the city “should focus a lot more on the conduct of its officers than trying to cover up the evidence of poor policing” and criticized officials for cherry-picking which videos it releases and which it withholds.
“The problem in this instance, in my opinion, is when the city decides that a body camera or dash camera video supports their narrative, they release it, sometimes immediately, and certainly it’s not a prohibition to release it then because something is still under investigation,” Saulter said.
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In the city’s court filing seeking to prevent the footage from being aired, Lightfoot lawyers said they objected to providing Young with a copy of the recordings on the raid at her home because they believed it “was an attempt to provide the media with the body worn camera to paint an inaccurate picture of what happened during the subject search warrant.”
Lightfoot lawyers said they were concerned it “would be shared with the media in a salacious and unfair manner designed to elicit a reactionary response, which carries the risk of poisoning the public’s view of the case.”
During her run for mayor, Lightfoot campaigned on a pledge to “bring in the light” and promised to boost transparency at City Hall and reform local government. Since taking office, however, Lightfoot has faced criticism over her handling of some key open government issues.
Previously, the Illinois attorney general’s office ruled the City Council violated the state’s open meetings law when it held a series of conference calls with Lightfoot during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Lightfoot also has repeatedly refused to release the inspector general’s report on the night former police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was found asleep in his car after drinking at a downtown bar known for heavy pours, despite calls from activists, media outlets and some aldermen to do so.
Lightfoot officials also sought to keep secret a top aide’s email about what he called “The Bet” from just before the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike.
“The Bet: 3 cigars and a bottle of scotch of the winner’s choosing. Under: Strike ends before next Weds. Over: Strike extends past Weds,” the aide wrote in the email, which had “confirming our agreement” in the subject line.
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Lightfoot officials later said it was a joke and denied the mayor bet on the strike. But they fought to keep the email secret, denying a Tribune open records request while citing exemptions to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act that protect policymaking discussions and attorney-client privilege.
The Illinois attorney general’s office ruled the redaction improper and ordered the email’s release.
gpratt@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @royalpratt


chicagotribune--2020-12-15--Ohio man who claimed to be missing Aurora boy Timmothy Pitzen sentenced to two years in prison

Rini , who will get credit for time served , had shown up in northern Kentucky in early April 2019 @ @ @ @ @ .
He told authorities he had just escaped captors who sexually and physically abused him @ @ @

CINCINNATI — A federal judge Tuesday sentenced an Ohio man to two years in prison and one year of probation for falsely claiming to be long-missing Aurora child Timmothy Pitzen.
Brian Michael Rini, now 25, said he was sorry during the video hearing before U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett made his sentence official.
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“I wish that I could just take it back,” Rini said. “I am sorry to the family.”
Brian Rini (Butler County Jail)
Kyle Healey, an assistant U.S. attorney, admonished Rini for causing “unnecessary pain” by raising false hope for relatives of Timmothy Pitzen, an Aurora boy who disappeared at age 6 in 2011.
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“He needs to understand that when he tells lies like this, it does cause damage,” Healey said. “It hurts people, it hurts their families ...”
Rini, who will get credit for time served, had shown up in northern Kentucky in early April 2019 claiming to be Timmothy Pitzen. He told authorities he had just escaped captors who sexually and physically abused him for years.
Confronted with DNA results proving he wasn’t the missing Aurora boy, Rini said he had watched a story about the boy on ABC’s “20/20” and wanted to get away from his own family, the FBI said.
Rini’s DNA was already on file because of his criminal record. He served time for burglary and vandalism.
Barrett told Rini earlier this year he faced a mandatory two-year sentence, but the judge wanted to see results of a presentencing investigation before entering his sentence. Rini will be released on probation in less than four months.
The judge said Rini should receive mental health treatment and counseling, have no contact with the missing boy’s family and can’t have drugs or guns.
Rini earlier pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors dismissed two other charges.
He twice portrayed himself in Ohio as a juvenile victim of sex trafficking, and in each case was identified after being fingerprinted, authorities have said.
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Timmothy Pitzen was 6 when his father dropped him off at Greenman Elementary School in Aurora on May 11, 2011.
He was picked up shortly after by his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, who took him on a three-day trip to a zoo and water parks before she was found dead by suicide in a Rockford motel room.
Notes she left behind stated her son was safe but would never be found.


chicagotribune--2020-12-15--FBI searching for man who robbed Aurora Fifth Third Bank

A man robbed the bank at 34 S. Broadway around 2 p.m. Monday , FBI officials said .
The man @ @ @ @ @ teller demanding money and did not show or imply he had any type of weapon @ @ @ @ @

The FBI is searching for a man who robbed a Fifth Third Bank in Aurora Monday afternoon.
A man robbed the bank at 34 S. Broadway around 2 p.m. Monday, FBI officials said. The man passed a note to the teller demanding money and did not show or imply he had any type of weapon, federal agents said.
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The FBI is searching for this man in connection with the robbery of the Fifth Third Bank at 34 S. Broadway in Aurora Monday afternoon. (FBI / HANDOUT)
The FBI released photos of the suspect Tuesday and said he was wearing a gray sweatshirt, light blue jeans, dark sneakers, a dark green skull cap, sunglasses and a surgical mask.
mejones@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-12-15--Chicago travel order now only requires 10-day quarantine for ‘red’ tier states, which will no longer

Chicago travel order now only requires 10-day quarantine for ‘red’ tier states, which will no longer include Iowa

Up until last month , any state averaging an infection rate higher than 15 daily cases per 100,000 residents over @ @ @ @ @ to the city ’ s list .
Then the city revamped its travel order introduced @ @ @ @ @ weekend to require a quarantine only from people coming from red-tier states , or those @ @ @ @ @ than Chicago .
The city is now at 60 cases per 100,000 residents .

Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, gives an update about the COVID-19 vaccines and other pandemic news at City Hall on Dec. 1, 2020. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
The city of Chicago moved more than a dozen states to its most severe travel order designation, but people returning from those areas only need to quarantine for 10 days now, officials announced Tuesday.
Based on the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance that those exposed to COVID-19 should quarantine for 10 days, not 14, travelers from “red” level states are mandated to follow the shorter requirement, according to a city news release.
“Regardless of category, people are urged to avoid nonessential travel and to follow standard COVID-19 mitigation practices such as wearing a mask, washing hands frequently, and social distancing,” the news release said.
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As of Friday, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia will be bumped up to the red tier. But Iowa is moving down to the “orange” designation that allows travelers to avoid the quarantine if they receive a negative test result before coming into the city.
That makes the total 31 red states and 17 orange states plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. New to the orange list will be Maine and Vermont. Only one state, Hawaii, remains “yellow,” meaning there are no additional testing or quarantine requirements.
Up until last month, any state averaging an infection rate higher than 15 daily cases per 100,000 residents over a seven-day period was added to the city’s list. Then the city revamped its travel order introduced during the Fourth of July weekend to require a quarantine only from people coming from red-tier states, or those with higher COVID-19 case rates than Chicago. The city is now at 60 cases per 100,000 residents.
Those coming from orange states, which have numbers between 15 cases-per-100,000 and Chicago’s rate of 60-per-100,000, should get a negative COVID-19 test result no more than 72 hours before arriving or quarantine for 10 days. Those coming from a yellow state must only observe regular social distancing and mask rules.
The travel order is updated every two weeks and goes into effect the following Friday.
ayin@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-12-15--No, COVID-19 vaccines don’t contain Satan’s microchips (and other scary conspiracy theories aren’t t

No, COVID-19 vaccines don’t contain Satan’s microchips (and other scary conspiracy theories aren’t true either)

While this sort of pushback against vaccine myths is happening in many quarters , Papacharissi said it might not be @ @ @ @ @ theories .
Subscribing to falsehoods has become a form of identity , she said , @ @ @ @ @ the mistrust they feel toward the government and media .

We have lifted the paywall on this story. To support essential reporting, please consider becoming a subscriber .
If you want an idea of the conspiracy theories that hang over COVID-19 vaccines, there’s no better summation than a 40-second TikTok video posted in October by a performer named Taylor Rousseau.
As a melodramatic song plays, Rousseau, young, blond and elaborately mascaraed, silently portrays a woman beaten to death for refusing to take a vaccine that contains a microchip carrying the mark of the beast. At the end, she enters a heavenly skyscape emblazoned with the words: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
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The video, which only recently was taken down, was seen more than 680,000 times, garnered 47,000 likes and, despite thousands of mocking comments (“Ma’am, this is a CVS”), earned plenty of positive reviews.
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“This is so incredibly powerful,” one viewer wrote.
Therein lies a challenge for public health officials trying to convince a wary portion of the public that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. Phony assertions have circulated for months on social media, joining a current of anti-vaccine sentiment that has grown stronger over the last 20 years.
A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is drawn into a syringe Dec. 14, 2020, at the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital in Iowa City, Iowa. (Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen )
A poll released last week showed that only 47% of Americans plan to get the vaccine. Those who didn’t want it mostly said they were concerned about side effects and the development and approval process, though the poll didn’t ask about many widely circulating myths.
Zizi Papacharissi, a communication and political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said social media has made it easy to amplify vaccine fabrications. Though companies like Facebook and YouTube have pledged to suppress such misinformation, she said that happens only after it has already spread.
“Any action they take is retroactive,” she said. “ ... Putting something over it that says, ‘This is possibly misinformation,’ or taking the post down, it’s not really going to help. In fact, it might do the opposite. It might attract even more attention.”
As the rollout begins, here are common myths about COVID-19 vaccines and what experts have to say about them:
Myth #1: The vaccine contains a microchip
The fear of being tracked via surreptitiously implanted microchips has existed for years, but some researchers say it became linked to COVID-19 vaccines by InfoWars, a conspiracy theory website from Alex Jones.
The idea is that the chips will allow the government and corporations to surveil people who get the vaccine. Microsoft founder Bill Gates and cell towers using 5G technology are also allegedly involved.
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Thomas Hope, professor of cell and developmental biology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a COVID-19 vaccine researcher, said that technology does not exist. And even if it did, he said, the microchips would have to find their way into multiple vaccines created by different companies.
“If someone (advancing this theory) has a phone in their hand, I would say you’re being tracked right now,” he said. “Why would someone else have to do it?”
Myth #2: The vaccine will alter your DNA
A video that misrepresents remarks Gates made about COVID-19 vaccines has convinced some they can change DNA, the molecule that contains a person’s genetic code.
The video appears to confuse DNA with messenger RNA, which is used by the new vaccines to direct cells to create components of the coronavirus, though not the entire thing. Immune cells detect those components and create antibodies that ward off the actual coronavirus should a person be exposed.
Hope said DNA and messenger RNA are entirely different molecules.
“There’s no DNA with (the) vaccines, so there’s no possibility it could alter your DNA,” he said.
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Myth #3: The vaccine will give you COVID-19
This belief appears to stem from the fact that some vaccines, such as those for measles, mumps and chickenpox, do indeed use live but weakened viruses to stimulate an immune response. Flu shots do the same thing with dead influenza viruses.
The messenger RNA vaccines don’t use the coronavirus, live or dead, and thus are incapable of infecting someone with COVID-19, said University of Chicago Medicine infectious diseases expert Dr. Emily Landon.
“These don’t have anything to do with the virus,” she said. “… There’s no virus involved in the process of doing this at all, which is why it can be made so much faster (than traditional vaccines).”
Some who received the Pfizer vaccine have reported fleeting side effects reminiscent of COVID-19, including fever, chills and fatigue. But Dr. Robert Citronberg executive medical director of infectious disease and prevention for Advocate Aurora Health, said they are just a sign that the immune system is kicking into gear.
“These minor side effects are exactly what we want,” he said.
Myth #4: Our immune systems are better than vaccines
A popular social media claim, circulated by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and others, says the vaccines are inferior to people’s immune systems in protecting against COVID-19.
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This belief conflates two numbers: the survival rate of those who contract the virus, which is about 99%, and the roughly 95% efficacy rate of the vaccines under consideration in the U.S.
Asked about the claim, Citronberg responded: “Those comments are from people who are not really good at math or biostatistics.”
He said the survival rate still means hundreds of thousands will die from the disease. The vaccines’ high efficacy rate, much higher than that of flu shots, could swiftly bring about herd immunity that would prevent people from encountering the virus at all, Citronberg said.
And even though COVID-19 spares the vast majority of people it infects, he said, tens of thousands of people will suffer aftereffects for a long time.
“Even if you don’t die from it, you may have to live with it, which can be disabling,” Citronberg said. “I think people don’t understand that either.”
While this sort of pushback against vaccine myths is happening in many quarters, Papacharissi said it might not be enough to counteract the conspiracy theories. Subscribing to falsehoods has become a form of identity, she said, a way people can reflect the mistrust they feel toward the government and media.
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“Until we repair that relationship of trust, we’re going to have problems sharing the truth,” she said.
jkeilman@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @JohnKeilman
This story has been revised to correctly identify Dr. Robert Citronberg and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.


chicagotribune--2020-12-15--Chicago Public Schools’ reopening plan uncertain as hearing on teachers union injunction request loo

Chicago Public Schools’ reopening plan uncertain as hearing on teachers union injunction request looms

The Chicago Department of Public Health last month declared schools could likely reopen if the time it takes for new @ @ @ @ @ 18 days , about 50 % longer than it was at the time .
By @ @ @ @ @ , the doubling time was nearly 41 days , according to CPS .
Over the @ @ @ @ @ pointed to an 8 % positivity rate or a seven-day average of 400 new cases @ @ @ @ @ could indicate the virus was too uncontrolled for in-person learning .

Major decisions could be made about Chicago Public Schools this week related to its coronavirus response and plans to resume in-person learning.
The Chicago Board of Education is set to vote on extending its emergency COVID-19 spending authorization until March, allowing the district to take on costs tied to the pandemic without the usual approval process. So far, CPS reports it has spent about $132 million on coronavirus measures, including $68 million of the $75 million earmarked for emergencies. If approved by the board, the extension would give CPS three additional months to spend the remaining $7 million.
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Then a hearing on legal action that would halt the district’s reopening plan is set for Thursday, the day before eligible families are supposed to get classroom assignments.
The Chicago Teachers Union last week filed a motion for an injunction with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board over the plan that would have students in prekindergarten and moderate to severe special education clusters programs return Jan. 11. Other students in kindergarten through sixth grade, and most seventh and eighth graders, would start a hybrid model on Feb. 1.
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Through the weekend, both CPS and CTU pushed their respective campaigns, with the union holding a car caravan promoting a set of demands it released last week and the district circulating a “myth vs fact” document. CPS CEO Janice Jackson also co-authored an opinion piece in the Washington Post with the heads of the nation’s two biggest school districts, New York City and Los Angeles, calling for more federal aid for schools.
“A major, coordinated nationwide effort — imagine a Marshall Plan for schools — is needed to return children to public schools quickly in the safest way possible,” according to the op-ed. “Schools have shown that they can stay open safely despite community spread of the virus, but that demands the right set of actions, and adequate financial support, to bring students back safely and address the impact of this crisis head on.”
Union leaders have accused CPS of manipulating statistics to justify their plan and failing to bargain over subjects they believe are mandatory.
Dozens of Chicago Teachers Union members and supporters take part in a rally outside Chicago Public Schools headquarters in July. The union continues to raise objections to plans to begin to reopen schools in January. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
The union is proposing the district reopen buildings only when the citywide positivity rate is below 3%. The CTU also wants neighborhood schools to be shut down if the positivity rate in their ZIP code surpasses 3%. As of Tuesday, the city’s positivity rate was 12.3%. The 3% metric was previously used to close public schools in New York City, but they later reopened to some students with a weekly random testing plan.
The Chicago Department of Public Health last month declared schools could likely reopen if the time it takes for new coronavirus cases to double reached 18 days, about 50% longer than it was at the time. By the end of the month, the doubling time was nearly 41 days, according to CPS. Over the summer, city officials had pointed to an 8% positivity rate or a seven-day average of 400 new cases per day as benchmarks that could indicate the virus was too uncontrolled for in-person learning.
With an evolving body of research about the coronavirus, CPS and CTU have cited varied evidence to support their positions. Each has called the other’s chosen public health metrics “arbitrary.”
CTU has criticized CPS for not including certain information in its recent ventilation assessment of school buildings, while CPS has said it’s met or exceeded standards set by public health agencies. The clash over air quality in schools comes as health and science experts try to circulate the message that the virus is more likely to spread through the air than on surfaces. In the meantime, the inequities both parties want to end continue to affect student outcomes.
White students in public schools in Chicago, among other cities, have been opting for in-person learning at higher rates than their non-white peers, though they have also been participating in remote learning at higher rates. While CPS has not made public the results of its latest intent-to-return surveys, in an October survey for students who could return in January, 51.6% of white students selected school-based learning, compared with 33.9% of Black students, 31% of Asian students and 29.7% of Latino students.
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A downward enrollment trend that began before the pandemic has worsened this year. CPS attendance is also down and was particularly low among Black students, prekindergarten and special education programs, and students in temporary living situations, according to district data.
District leaders have drawn attention to private and parochial schools that have opened in the city, saying that CPS students are further disadvantaged by remote schooling when their peers are learning in person. They have also stressed that it’s a matter of choice for families who deserve the option, though teachers opting out are expected to use the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Additional CTU demands include enforcement of safety protocols such as masking, training for staff to check if buildings meet ventilation standards, testing of 25% of staff each week on a rotating basis and vaccine priority given to “most needed” areas.
For remote learning, the union has proposed that CPS reduce screen time by an hour a day and provide families with more equipment such as headphones. CTU also has pushed back against CPS plans for simultaneous instruction, which requires teachers to instruct students in school buildings and those learning remotely at the same time.
Jackson has insisted the simultaneous teaching model will work, with parents given a choice for their children between in-person instruction and continued remote learning. And most kindergarten through eighth grade students who do return to schools on Feb. 1 will begin with a hybrid model, where they spend part of the week in school with small “pods” of classmates and part of the week learning from home.
CPS has not yet set a return date for high school students or for seventh and eighth graders who do not attend traditional K-8 schools.
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The union has proposed a joint CTU-CPS committee on COVID-19 that would include independent experts and be involved in inspections and directives.
In response, CPS officials said they’ve met with the union more than 40 times since June and that this is the first written proposal CTU put forth relating to in-person instruction.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, the district has followed the best available guidance from experts and scientists,” said CPS spokesman James Gherardi. “Numerous studies and data from schools right here in Chicago show that classrooms can safely reopen with proper mitigation strategies, and that we must open our doors to ensure we do not lose a generation of Black and Latinx students who need in-person support to get the quality education they deserve. ... We will continue to meet regularly with CTU, but proposals that contradict public health guidance and reduce instructional time will not be accepted.”
hleone@chicagotribune.com