Comment: This one is for math geeks, but the bottom line is exactly what we’ve been writing about why Illinois has focused on the wrong data. As this author says, “I hope you’ll be a more educated consumer of COVID-19 data instead of just looking at case counts ticking upward on cable news screens without context. That context includes not only reporting about the amount of testing, but also indications such as hospital strain, which are more robust since they aren’t subject to as many vagaries about how tests are conducted.”

“The question of aid to municipalities arose after Congress passed a $2 trillion aid package that included $150 billion for all 50 states, but restricted funds for cities to those with populations of at least 500,000. Chicago is the only city in Illinois meeting that threshold.”

“If they had started in February building ventilators, getting ready for this pandemic, we would not have the problems that we have today, and frankly, very many fewer people would die,” Pritzker said.

Other restrictions – like instituting a curfew, allowing only a single member of a household to run errands, or using last names to institute rotations of when people can go out in public – are other possibilities.

Sunday, the governor said he has two calls a week with legislators and he also talks regularly with mayors around the state. But State Rep. Tim Butler was in the dark Friday when Pritzker announced Friday that the state was acquiring vacant hospital space in Springfield.

They’ve already sued cruise ship operators, soap manufacturers and insurance companies, but COVID-19 will give entrepreneurial lawyers plenty more opportunities to make money by targeting nursing homes, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, retailers and possibly even homeowners over the disease.

To meet the deadline of a supplier and get 1.5 million potentially life-saving N95 masks, Illinois’ assistant comptroller raced north on I-55 with a $3.4 million check.

Gov. JB Pritzker reported Sunday that the overall state totals are up to 11,256 cases of COVID-19 and 274 deaths.

This week the state comptroller announced “further payment delays are expected in coming weeks and months” and added $1 billion traditionally expected in the month of April” due to income tax payment will be delayed.

“We have a great history in America of being individualistic. The “cowboy” mentality. Rugged individualism. Going against the grain and convention. Americans are not sheep that are led to slaughter. This will not be a ‘nice’ blogpost.”

Med Alliance Group, a medical distributor in Illinois, is besieged by calls and emails from cities around the country. Each asks the same thing: Send more refrigerated trailers so that we can handle a situation we never could have imagined.

Although Pritzker noted that “the vast majority of people in Illinois are taking it seriously,” he said people who are not complying with the order are either “not paying attention to the news, or they’re stupid.”