Coronavirus live blog, October 18, 2020: Illinois’ COVID-19 positivity rate rises again with 4,245 new cases Sunday

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4,245 new COVID-19 cases reported in Illinois as positivity rate continues climbing

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Illinois health officials Sunday reported 4,245 new cases of COVID-19 as the state’s positivity rate continued its climb for the 14th consecutive day.

That is only 309 cases fewer than the record-breaking tally of 4,554 cases announced Friday by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The state has now reported a daily caseload of more than 4,000 in three of the last four days. The latest cases were confirmed among 79,296 tests, raising the positivity rate, which indicates how rapidly the virus is spreading, to 5.3% from 5.2% the previous day.

Public health officials Sunday also attributed 22 more deaths to the coronavirus, for a total of 9,214 since the pandemic began.

Health experts have warned Illinois is approaching a new peak that could be severe if people don’t adhere to recommended guidelines.

On Sunday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker accused “Trump allies in our state” of contributing to the spike in Illinois COVID-19 infections by encouraging people to flout the rules in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Read the full story here.

News

3 p.m. Purdue football coach Jeff Brohm tests positive for COVID-19

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue football coach Jeff Brohm has tested positive for the coronavirus, the school announced Sunday.

Brohm is awaiting a second test to confirm the initial result and is isolating at his home, Purdue’s athletic department said in a statement.

He is expected to speak with reporters during his regularly scheduled Zoom call Monday morning.

The Boilermakers are scheduled to host Iowa in their season opener Saturday when the Big Ten Conference begins its virus-delayed, eight-game, conference-only season.

Read the full story here.

11:25 a.m. Gov. J.B. Pritzker: President Trump ‘made it nearly impossible’ for Illinois, other states to reopen

WASHINGTON – A day after President Donald Trump said Illinois “could use a new governor,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Sunday said with COVID-19 infections rising, Trump has “made it nearly impossible” for states to move forward with widespread re-openings.

Pritzker also accused unnamed “Trump allies in our state” of contributing to the spike in Illinois COVID-19 infections by “urging people” to not pay attention to social distancing and other rules.

The governor made his remarks on CNN’s “State of the Union” in an interview with host Jake Tapper.

Trump stumped in Wisconsin Saturday – in Janesville, not far from the Illinois border – with backers crowded into a rally at the Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport in Janesville, with many not wearing masks.

A central Trump strategy is to downplay the struggle to contain the health and economic crises triggered by the COVID-19 infections while Democrat Joe Biden’s campaign is trying to make the election a referendum on how the president has managed the pandemic.

Trump came to Wisconsin as the the state’s Department of Health Services reported a record number of COVID-19 cases. Illinois also smashed state records last week, with hospitalizations and positive test rate jumping, leading Pritzker to declare the state is “in a new wave.”

Read the full story from Lynn Sweet here.

10:39 a.m. Growing supply of COVID-19 tests presents a new challenge: tracking results

WASHINGTON — After struggling to ramp up coronavirus testing, the U.S. can now screen several million people daily, thanks to a growing supply of rapid tests. But the boom comes with a new challenge: keeping track of the results.

All U.S. testing sites are legally required to report their results, positive and negative, to public health agencies. But state health officials say many rapid tests are going unreported, which means some new COVID-19 infections may not be counted.

And the situation could get worse, experts say. The federal government is shipping more than 100 million of the newest rapid tests to states for use in public schools, assisted living centers and other new testing sites.

“Schools certainly don’t have the capacity to report these tests,” said Dr. Jeffrey Engel of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. “If it’s done at all it’s likely going to be paper-based, very slow and incomplete.”

Read the full story here.

8:15 a.m. US resorts adapt to new normal of skiing amid coronavirus pandemic

Helmet, goggles, skis? Check. Hand sanitizer, face covering, reservation? Check.

Roughly seven months after the coronavirus cut the ski season short at the height of spring break, resorts across the United States and Canada are slowly picking up the pieces and figuring out how to safely reopen this winter. While many of the details are still being worked out, resort leaders are asking guests to curb their expectations and to embrace a new normal while skiing and snowboarding amid a pandemic.

That could mean wearing masks, standing 6 feet (1.8 meters) apart in lift lines (about the length of a typical ski), no dine-in service, riding lifts only with your group and no large gatherings for an apres drink.

Read the full story here.

7:50 a.m. Trump demonstrates new determination to minimize threat of COVID-19

Gone are the days when President Donald Trump held forth daily at the White House podium flanked by members of his coronavirus task force. And the days when Vice President Mike Pence and other task force officials would head to Trump’s office to brief him immediately after their meetings.

The White House won’t say when Trump last met with the task force.

In the week since he emerged from coronavirus isolation, Trump has demonstrated new determination to minimize the threat of the virus that has killed more than 215,000 Americans and complicated his chances of winning another four years in the White House.

Read the full story here.

7:05 a.m. Doctors in rural Midwest struggle as COVID-19 overwhelms communities with limited resources

WESSINGTON SPRINGS, S.D. — Rural Jerauld County in South Dakota didn’t see a single case of the coronavirus for more than two months stretching from June to August. But over the last two weeks, its rate of new cases per person soared to one of the highest in the nation.

“All of a sudden it hit, and as it does, it just exploded,” said Dr. Tom Dean, one of just three doctors who work in the county.

As the brunt of the virus has blown into the Upper Midwest and northern Plains, the severity of outbreaks in rural communities has come into focus. Doctors and health officials in small towns worry that infections may overwhelm communities with limited medical resources. And many say they are still running up against attitudes on wearing masks that have hardened along political lines and a false notion that rural areas are immune to widespread infections.

Dean took to writing a column in the local weekly newspaper, the True Dakotan, to offer his guidance. In recent weeks, he’s watched as one in roughly every 37 people in his county has tested positive for the virus.

It ripped through the nursing home in Wessington Springs where both his parents lived, killing his father. The community’s six deaths may appear minimal compared with thousands who have died in cities, but they have propelled the county of about 2,000 people to a death rate roughly four times higher than the nationwide rate.

Read the full story here.

6 a.m. Experts: State on brink of a severe flareup that rivals initial coronavirus peak in spring

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Illinois’ coronavirus testing positivity rate inched up for a 13th consecutive day Saturday as 3,629 more residents tested positive for COVID-19.

That’s almost a thousand fewer cases than the record-breaking tally of 4,554 announced by public health officials a day earlier, but it’s still the state’s fourth highest count of the pandemic.

Experts warn Illinois is on the brink of a severe coronavirus flareup rivaling its initial peak of the pandemic in May, as cases also soar to record highs in neighboring Midwest states. Illinois has logged almost 47,000 cases so far in October, more than double its figure for the entire month of June.

While hefty case numbers don’t tell the full story, the latest cases were confirmed among 77,489 tests, raising the statewide seven-day average testing positivity rate once again to 5.2%.

That number indicates how rapidly the virus is spreading, and it’s as high as it’s been since early June, shooting up nearly two full percentage points since Oct. 4.

“We’re in a new wave of COVID-19: rising cases, rising positivity, all across the nation — not just Illinois,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Friday.

Read the full story here.

New cases

• Florida coach Dan Mullen tests positive for COVID-19, will self-isolate with his family.
• Illinois suffered a second straight record-shattering day with 4,554 new coronavirus cases reported Friday
• Fred Dean, fearsome pass rusher in 49ers’ dynasty, dies at 68 after being hospitalized with the coronavirus.
• First lady: Son Barron Trump was positive for COVID-19, now negative.

Analysis & Commentary

7:48 a.m. You don’t need a sleeping bag to survive early voting lines, but a campstool — and a scarf — might come in handy

It took me two hours and seven minutes to early vote this week at Truman College in Uptown, only five minutes of which involved actually filling out the ballot.

The rest of the time was spent waiting outdoors in a long line that moved at a glacial pace, followed by a shorter wait indoors.

Yes, this is why I should have taken the advice to vote by mail, but I wasn’t ready to do that, and only my wife gets to say, ‘I told you so,’ because she really did tell me so, and the rest of you were just thinking it.

In my defense, I’m hardly alone.

At numerous early voting sites across the city on Wednesday, voters experienced similar delays as the first day of expanded early voting in all 50 wards coincided with warm, sunny fall weather.

If you’re going to vote in person in 2020, you’re going to need to bring your patience, your mask, some comfortable shoes and probably your mobile phone to keep you entertained.

And, oh yes, appropriate outerwear because you’re going to be waiting outdoors. The pandemic requires election officials to limit the number of people inside a polling place.

In certain extreme circumstances, I could even see a campstool and snacks coming in handy.

Read Mark Brown’s full column here.