Category: COVID-19 Impact

Pritzker signs Illinois’ 34th Covid Disaster Proclamation even as Biden proclaims ‘Covid is over’ – Wirepoints Quickpoint

Never mind that President Joe Biden declared “the pandemic is over” during a 60 Minutes interview Sunday night. In Illinois, it’s apparently still a “disaster” that warrants a declaration covering the entire state – all 102 counties. Gov. Pritzker issued his 34th Disaster Declaration on September 16, 2022, marking more than 900 days of Illinoisans living under emergency rules.

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Pritzker administration pushes back against Wirepoints’ critique of latest “Disaster Declaration.” Our response. – Wirepoints

Wirepoints recently criticized Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proclamation in which he declared Illinois a “disaster area” for a 32nd consecutive 30-day period. The governor can’t have it both ways, we said. He can’t claim he’s managed Covid successfully and yet, more than two years later, continue to say Illinois is a disaster. The administration’s response is hypocritical, at best. Here’s why.

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Gov. Pritzker can’t have it both ways. He can’t claim he’s done a great job at managing Covid and yet still proclaim Illinois a “Disaster Area.” – Wirepoints Quickpoint

Gov. J.B. Pritzker can’t have it both ways. He can’t claim he’s managed Covid successfully and yet, more than two years later, still proclaim Illinois a “Disaster Area.” Illinois is now one of just 14 states still under Emergency Orders and the only one of its neighbors to still implement Covid rules via executive fiat.

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Gov. Pritzker is still proclaiming Illinois a Covid “disaster area.” How does he do it with a straight face? – Wirepoints

Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently declared Illinois a Covid disaster area for the 31st consecutive 30-day period. Even if you were sympathetic to Pritzker’s disaster declarations during the height of the pandemic, you’d have to admit his pronouncement is absurd today. Every major metric, from vaccinations to hospitalizations to deaths, tells us that.

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UPDATED TO REFLECT DEVORE MOTION AGAINST CPS: Chicago Teachers Union appeased yet again. CPS agreed to mask Chicago’s 330,000 students through August 2022 – Wirepoints

UPDATED TO REFLECT DEVORE MOTION AGAINST CPS: As part of a “safety” agreement signed between CPS and the CTU to resolve four-day January teacher walkout, Mayor Lori Lightfoot agreed to keep Chicago’s 330,000 students masked through August 2022. Never mind that kids across the state are shedding their masks. The “safety” agreement is another example of a collective bargaining agreement gone awry.

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Appeal Dismissed: Illinois Statewide School Mask Mandate Remains Gone For Now, Probably For Good. – Wirepoints

An Illinois appellate court late Thursday night dismissed an appeal made by the Pritzker Admin, thereby leaving in place the Feb. 4 court order that effectively ended Illinois’ statewide school mask mandate as of that date. It will be interesting to see if Gov. JB Pritzker persists with the claim that his statewide school mandate remained the law despite the lower court’s ruling.

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CT, DE, NJ, and OR are taking masks off children. NYT says masks should go. Gov. Pritzker is far behind the curve, so the pressure is on. – Wirepoints joins Chicago’s Morning Answer on AM 560

Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski went on on AM560 Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss Gov. Pritzker’s school mask mandates. With 37 states imposing no mandate, the govs of NJ, CT, OR and DE announcing they’ll end their mandates and even outlets like the Atlantic, NPR and Time Magazine turning against masks, Pritzker’s position has become both politically and scientifically untenable.

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Chicago teachers are paid some of the highest salaries of any big district in the nation. What do Chicago parents get in return? – Wirepoints

With Chicago children kept out of classes for a second day because of a Chicago Teachers Union walkout, now is a good time to remind Chicago parents just how much they pay city educators to teach their children. CPS pays teachers some of the highest, if not the highest, salaries of any big district after adjusting for cost of living.

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Indefensible: Vilification And Hectoring To Vaccinate Children Expands – Wirepoints

In light of the differences in expert opinion, parents should be entirely free from condescending insults and coercion if they choose not to vaccinate their children or to wait until better evidence is in. But politicians, including President Joe Biden and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, have resorted to hectoring and steamrolling parents into vaccinating their kids, pretending that the science in favor of vaccinating kids is certain.

 

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City of Chicago 2022 budget up nearly 60 percent over pre-COVID 2019 as Lightfoot set to implement ‘equity’ agenda – Wirepoints

Lightfoot is unintentionally setting Chicagoans up for a bigger fiscal cliff by ignoring the city’s worsening debts, and by creating more dependency through a multitude of programs. When the Fed’s largesse runs out Chicago will have millions in additional expenses and even higher debts – and no plan for how to pay for them.

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Legislative review board votes 10-0 to have Pritzker Administration review school mask requirement rules – Wirepoints

The bipartisan JCAR committee voted 10-0 to request more answers from the ISBE regarding its authority to enforce Pritzker’s mask mandate for schools. JCAR wants to see ISBE’s enforcement policies actually included in the administrative rules and in harmony with Illinois law, rather than just based on “guidance” from the governor’s mandates and executive orders.

 

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Illinois’ Gov. Pritzker strips school districts, parents of control over masks with new mandate – Wirepoints

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has issued a new mandate requiring all Illinois public school students to wear masks when they return to school later this month, taking away the authority of school districts to make their own decisions based on local COVID conditions. The governor continues to act unilaterally, even though the state’s ability to manage COVID has improved dramatically in recent months.

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Pritzker wants $350 million more for K-12 budget just as Illinois school districts are about to get $5 billion in new federal stimulus. A district-by-district view. – Wirepoints

Illinois’ K-12 school districts are set to receive $5 billion in federal dollars as part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan package. Nevertheless, Gov. J.B. Pritzker is ignoring the windfall and wants Illinois taxpayers to add $350 million to the state’s 2022 education budget.

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Officials refuse to open doors at top-spending Deerfield/Highland Park school district as surrounding districts return to in-class learning – Wirepoints

Board members of Township District 113, made up of two high schools serving more than 3,500 students, have shown no signs of wanting to open up even as nearby districts increasingly add in-person learning options. Not surprisingly, that has many parents in the north shore suburbs of Deerfield and Highland Park more than frustrated.

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How Illinois can save more lives by vaccinating the elderly first and how the inconsistency of Illinois’ lockdown rules create more chaos – Wirepoints on AM 560’s The Morning Answer

Ted was on AM 560’s The Morning Answer this week talking about how Illinois can save more lives by giving the elderly the COVID vaccine before any other group, the inconsistency of Illinois’ destructive lockdown rules, and how Illinois’ leadership doesn’t appear to have any real plan to bring the COVID crisis to an end.

 

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True inequality: In-class education at Chicago’s Catholic schools but remote learning at public schools – Wirepoints

CPS teachers haven’t been in the classroom for nearly nine months and the CTU is hinting they’ll strike for the fourth time in less than a decade to stop any reopening from happening. In contrast, Catholic school teachers have been teaching in-person, five days a week, to 34,000 city students since the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year.

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The facts support in-person learning for most Illinois schools. Case study: New Trier High School District 203 – Wirepoints

It’s only natural for parents and teachers to be worried about the impact of returning students to the classroom. But it’s important to look at the science and data of the coronavirus. The reality is children are far less likely to get infected with COVID-19, are far less likely to get seriously ill, and are far less likely to spread the virus to adults and other children.

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“The individuals with BLM signs in their yards may be well-intentioned people, but they’re just not paying attention to what the organization is really about.” – Mark Glennon on the Steve Cortes Show

Mark was on with Steve Cortez this week. “Some say it’s the movement I support, it’s just a phrase, I don’t care about the organization.’ But that’s the problem, by using that phrase, you are supporting that organization, giving them credibility.”

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What’s Illinois’ true COVID-19 fatality rate? – Wirepoints

Antibody testing results from around the country are showing the actual lethality of the virus is far lower than originally feared. CDC findings suggest that the true number of U.S. cases total 24 million, not the 2.4 million reported officially. That would drop the virus fatality rate to 0.5 percent from the known-case death rate of 4.9 percent.

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COVID-19 Peaked In April in Illinois Just When Pritzker Changed ‘Science and Data’ To Say Otherwise – Wirepoints

The bottom line is clear: The virus peaked even before Pritzker claimed the science and data had changed to say it would peak later. And that was just when Pritzker needed to build up his case for extending his stay-at-home order and his reopening plan, which has been rated the harshest in the nation, a plan that makes no sense on its face.

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“The longer the economy is shut, the worse Illinois’ revenues and deficits will be. Politicians expect jobless Illinoisans to pay for those deficits.” – Ted on the Illinois Channel

“You’ve got one million Illinoisans unemployed, nobody knows what’s happening with the economy, we’re only now starting to open up. And yet the government passed a record spending budget – the biggest ever – with no cuts, no furloughs, no kind of savings whatsoever to give relief to Illinoisans that have to pay for that government.”

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Two Articles About Wirepoints by Greg Hinz in Crain’s Chicago Business

Greg Hinz has long been among the most prominent of Illinois’ reporters and commentators on Illinois government given his position as such at Crain’s Chicago Business.

Here are his two recent articles directed to us at Wirepoints. We reproduce them in full with no further comment, for now, except to highlight the portions pertaining to Wirepoints, and to ask our regular readers to consider in light of what we’ve actually written.

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“Illinois politicians can keep playing games as long as the market keeps bailing out the state. But when the market stops, the choice is chaos or reforms.” – Ted on AM 560 Chicago’s Morning Answer

Ted talked about the impact of Illinois delaying its latest bond offering and the fact that nearly half of COVID-19 deaths in Illinois are linked to retirement homes. “As long as the market or federal government keeps bailing out Illinois, politicians can keep playing games. But when that stops, the choice is chaos or reforms.”

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IL pols are out of can-kicks but reject reforms. Americans won’t bail out Illinois. Bankruptcy might be the only option left. – Ted on The Chicago Way with John Kass

Ted was on with John Kass last week to discuss what bankruptcy could look like for Illinois and Chicago. Now that Illinois Senator President Don Harmon has breached the subject of a bailout and Senator Mitch McConnell opened up the possibility of bankruptcy, Illinois’ fiscal mismanagement is in the national spotlight.

 

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COVID-19 pushes nation’s weakest public pension plans closer to the brink: A 50-state survey – Wirepoints Special Report

 

The nation’s weakest public pension funds may soon be among the casualties of COVID-19. Many were facing insolvency even before the virus hit and the stock market meltdown will only accelerate their decline. In 2018, the most recent year with comparable nationwide data, some of those funds had assets equal to just a few years’ worth of benefit payouts.

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“There are projections of unemployment of up to 30 percent. That’s about 2 million Illinoisans unemployed.” – Ted on the Illinois Channel

“What’s the impact on the economy and the people in the economy? There may be up to 2 million Illinoisans unemployed. If the economy stays closed for too long, we can have more opioid deaths, more suicides, more mental health issues, more domestic violence, much more poverty…all these need to be weighed against the risks of the virus.”

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Illinois Finally Starts Collecting Key Coronavirus Hospitalization Info. The Backstory is Shameful. – Wirepoints

Until April 3, Illinois failed to collect daily information critical to assessing and managing the COVID-19 crisis. It began doing so only under pressure, in which Wirepoints played no small role.

Now the state is bragging about the simple step it should have taken long ago, citing it as an example of its prowess in science and data, and using it for a political jab.

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“The last decade has hidden all the cracks that exist in Illinois. The booming stock market, the national economy, those really helped Illinois hide from its problems. Now those problems are going to be exposed.” – Ted on the Illinois Channel

Ted discussed the impact of the Coronavirus on Illinois and Chicago’s budgets, the effect of the market crash on Illinois’ already crisis-level pension funds, and how these recent events make the push for a progressive tax all the more foolhardy.

 

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Coronavirus could wreak additional havoc on Illinois – Wirepoints

Illinois has no financial reserves to weather a recession. The state had no plan to stop the state’s rapid fiscal decline even before the virus and it has no plans now. It’s impossible to know how the impact of the virus will play out and whether a recession is imminent or not. But one thing we do know. Illinoisans are totally exposed to the risks.

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