-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
The area faced an economic slowdown about three weeks ago, when concerns about the virus first started to materialize in the U.S. Many of the area’s restaurants and shops saw a drop-off in business that has since turned into a near complete shutdown.
Chicago Public Schools on Wednesday will seek permission to spend up to $75 million to address and maintain “critical services” during the ongoing pandemic. But that request and the rest of the board’s monthly meeting will be heard online rather than in person. And the number of public participants allowed to actually speak at the meeting will be drastically reduced, down from 60 speakers over a total of two hours, to 15 speakers over 30 minutes.
“We know the governor and lawmakers have a lot on their plate right now. But the CEJA bill already was unnecessarily delayed when lawmakers thought they had plenty of time to deal with it. They don’t anymore. The legislative session is set to end May 31.”
In the same press conference, Pritzker acknowledged the state’s economy is likely to suffer due to the social restrictions in place statewide, and that state revenues are likely to suffer as well, which could lead to budget cuts.
“We haven’t seen enough data yet to really know when we can bring the restriction off but again watching every day and looking at the data every day,” Pritzker said.
Operations at the nation’s airports have virtually ground to a halt amid a steep decline in air travel.
The 1,544-room Hilton Chicago at 720 S. Michigan Avenue is notifying guests that it will suspend operations as of Friday.
As of late Tuesday afternoon, more than 20 young people had been ordered released from the facility, with more hearings to continue Wednesday.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at his daily news briefing that the state’s hospitals would have run out of beds a week from now if Illinois’ stay-at-home order were not in place.
The department will allow out-of-state physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and respiratory care therapists; also, variance will allow Illinois physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and respiratory care therapists with inactive, non-renewed, or expired licenses to restore their licenses temporarily.
An infographic used during Tuesday’s briefing from the Illinois Department of Public Health showed that of the 26,025 hospital beds available in Illinois, 12,588 – or 51.6 percent – were occupied. Health officials estimate by March 30 the need for beds will increase by 2,511, and by 28,222 by April 6, exceeding the state’s capacity.
Cook County Republican Chairman Sean Morrison lashed out Monday at Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot, accusing them of putting politics before constituents with their “volley of combative and sarcastic tweets” aimed at President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
“Finger-pointing and name calling by Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot solves absolutely nothing except for trying to score some cheap political points,” Morrison said in a statement. “We need steady, effective and focused leadership and they’re not providing it.”
The Fed’s announcement Monday removes any dollar limits from its plans to support the flow of credit through an economy that has been ravaged by the viral outbreak. The central bank’s all-out effort has now gone beyond even the extraordinary drive it made to rescue the economy from the 2008 financial crisis.
Comment: More hypocrisy from Lightfoot for the purpose of Trump-bashing. On February 26, when she should have been acting aggressively, Lightfoot accused Trump and the federal government of fear mongering and spreading panic, as the Chicago Sun-Times put it, for taking the measures they did to control the virus.
“Illinois’ elected leaders need to press Congress to make expanded [education] funding part of any COVID-19 stimulus, and to press the eventual Democratic nominee to stick to the Title I campaign promise”
Travelers would have been required to present REAL ID cards to board U.S. flights starting on Oct. 1. The president says a new deadline will be announced soon.
The project is primarily being funded by $700 million in TIF subsidies from city.
“It’s very much a war effort, where it’s all hands on deck,” said Mark Denzler, president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association. In some cases, manufacturers have seen orders slow amid the outbreak, and making equipment to fight the spread of COVID-19 is a way to keep them going.
A spokesperson with Peoria International Airport, said some planes are leaving the terminal with fewer than 10 passengers.
Transit agencies, including Chicago’s, are facing multi-billion-dollar shortfalls and potentially credit rating downgrades from Moody’s Investors Service as the virus has decimated ridership. And the governors of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Illinois have called for hundreds of billion of dollars to help cover their costs to combat the virus, demanding that the federal government step in to help.
Over the weekend, demand reached critical mass and the systems supporting the online applications wasn’t robust enough to take all the applications that were coming in. The state pivoted and put the online unemployment website onto a bigger server to serve the massive demand.
In all, five hotels are set to provide 1,000 beds by Tuesday and 2,000 beds by the end of the week. There also are plans to house patients at the former Metro South Medical Center in Blue Island.
Locally, hospital officials say staffing and equipment levels are strong for now, and the emphasis is on keeping medical staffers healthy and rested.
For well over a week, the governor has been lobbing complaints at the president via Twitter and on telelvision news programs. Now, Pritzker’s office said Illinois is expected to get 300 ventilators and 250,000 N95 masks.
In a statement, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she sought the subsidies to reduce the burden on workers, especially health professionals who can’t work from home.
The judge’s order does not include reviews of inmates facing charges in cases handled at the various branch courts.
As the coronavirus spreads and local, state and national governments work to contain the outbreak, the Tribune is tracking Illinois cases by date, county, age, etc.
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