Coronavirus live blog, July 25, 2020: Testing positivity rate ticks up again with latest 1,426 Illinois coronavirus cases

New coronavirus cases continued to rise today in Illinois, but the number of deaths attributed to the virus remained low. Public health experts say this is because younger people are contracting the virus, but not dying from it.

Here’s what happened today as Chicago and the rest of the state grappled with the coronavirus pandemic.

News

5:56 p.m. Testing positivity rate ticks up again with latest 1,426 Illinois coronavirus cases

| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Health officials on Saturday announced another 1,426 people across Illinois have tested positive for COVID-19.

The new cases were confirmed among 38,200 tests, raising the state’s testing positivity rate over the last week to 3.6% — a full percentage point higher than it was two weeks ago.

The Illinois Department of Public Health has urged residents to wear face masks and maintain social distance as the virus rebounds across the state, a gradual rise that Gov. J.B. Pritzker has warned could prompt business closures in some regions if case numbers aren’t reined in.

Officials on Friday singled out four downstate counties at a “warning level” for a series of outbreaks tied to “business and risky behavior.”

The latest cases marked Illinois’ fourth straight day reporting 1,000 or more cases. The state is averaging 1,068 new cases per day so far in July, up from an average of 764 daily cases in June.

But as young people have accounted for most of the recent uptick, Illinois’ coronavirus death totals have remained relatively low compared to the height of the pandemic. Twelve more deaths were attributed to COVID-19 Saturday, raising Illinois’ toll to 7,397.

Read the full report from Mitchell Armentrout here.

2:41 p.m. US Supreme Court denies Nevada church’s appeal of coronavirus rule

RENO, Nev. — A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court denied a rural Nevada church’s request late Friday to strike down as unconstitutional a 50-person cap on worship services as part of the state’s ongoing response to the coronavirus.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court refused to grant the request from the Christian church east of Reno to be subjected to the same COVID-19 restrictions in Nevada that allow casinos, restaurants and other businesses to operate at 50% of capacity with proper social distancing.

Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley argued that the hard cap on religious gatherings was an unconstitutional violation of its parishioners’ First Amendment rights to express and exercise their beliefs.

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal majority in denying the request without explanation.

Read the full report here.

12:00 p.m. Will Illinois shut down again? What you need to know about Pritzker’s new ‘tier’ plan

On July 15, Gov. J.B. Pritzker unveiled a new plan to mitigate the continued spread of COVID-19 in Illinois, splitting up the state into 11 regions instead of the four regions outlined in his original Restore Illinois plan.

The new guidelines aim to take a more granular approach to coronavirus mitigation, targeting smaller areas than the original plan did and separating Chicago into its own region.

The plan outlines three tiers of actions that officials can take to slow the spread of coronavirus. If a region surpasses certain thresholds — metrics include percentage of people testing positive, hospital capacity, and rising hospital admissions — then officials can choose to tighten restrictions from a “menu” of options outlined in the new tiered-system.

Read the full report from Caroline Hurley here.

9:30 a.m. Federal public health officials release new strategy addressing COVID-19 inequalities

If Black, Hispanic and Native Americans are hospitalized and killed by the coronavirus at far higher rates than others, shouldn’t the government count them as high risk for serious illness?

That seemingly simple question has been mulled by federal health officials for months. And so far the answer is no.

But federal public health officials have released a new strategy that vows to improve data collection and take steps to address stark inequalities in how the disease is affecting Americans.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stress that the disproportionately high impact on certain minority groups is not driven by genetics. Rather, it’s social conditions that make people of color more likely to be exposed to the virus and — if they catch it — more likely to get seriously ill.

“To just name racial and ethnic groups without contextualizing what contributes to the risk has the potential to be stigmatizing and victimizing,” said the CDC’s Leandris Liburd, who two months ago was named chief health equity officer in the agency’s coronavirus response.

Read the full report from the Associated Press here.

7:15 a.m. Sox, Cubs open delayed season in fan-free ballparks

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

In some places outside Wrigley Field Friday, it looked like a typical Friday night with the Chicago Cubs playing on the road, as fans lined up to get into bars to watch the game.

But the team was right there, in a fan-free Wrigley Field. Same for the White Sox, playing at home in a nearly-empty Guaranteed Rate Field, with a few fans gathered in the parking lot, creating a greatly scaled-down tailgate.

That’s what it’s like when Major League Baseball starts a delayed season amid a global pandemic.

There were festivities, but no fireworks, as the White Sox took the field. At Wrigley, there were a few fans, off in the distance, on the rooftops overlooking the ballpark.

See more from Ashlee Rezin-Garcia and Tyler LaRiviere here.

New cases

• Another 1,532 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Illinois, health officials announced Friday, the latest four-digit daily caseload that has Gov. J.B. Pritzker worried the state is on the brink of a dangerous coronavirus resurgence.
• The new cases were confirmed among 44,330 tests received by the state, keeping Illinois’ testing rolling positivity rate at 3.4% over the last week.
• Mel Gibson spent a week in a Los Angeles hospital in April after testing positive for COVID-19, his representative revealed Friday. The 64-year-old actor and director has completely recovered and is doing “great” according to the rep. He also said Gibson has tested negative “numerous times” since then.
• Nats’ Juan Soto tests positive for COVID-19, will miss season opener
• Cubs quality assurance coach Mike Napoli tested positive for COVID-19.

Analysis & Commentary

7:30 a.m. Cubs’ open season with unmistakable allegory at Wrigley: The Show must go on

You want a symbol of big-time sports’ return to Chicago? Try the Cubs’ Jason Heyward running out to right field for the first inning of the first game of the season Friday, carrying the city’s flag with him. Hard to top that.

That it was Heyward, and that he held that flag, represented more than just baseball, of course. An African American player of prominence — the first, and for several moving seconds the only, Cub on the field — would represent the team’s stated embrace of the Black Lives Matter Movement, and would do so while showing love to a city in turmoil.

It was pitch perfect, and it was very much in tune with the symbolism and metaphors that are everywhere you look in baseball, whose restart is — viewed without cynicism, inasmuch as that’s possible in 2020 — a grand embodiment of “the show must go on.”

The Show is going on. Ready or not. Sensible or not. Pandemic or not.

Recognizable or not, too.

Read the full report from Steve Greenberg here.