Latest coronavirus news: April 16, 2020

Here’s the day’s news on how COVID-19 impacted Chicago and Illinois.

SHARE Latest coronavirus news: April 16, 2020

Days after Gov. J.B. Pritzker voiced optimism about the state “bending the curve,” Illinois health officials on Thursday announced the grim reality that 125 more people had died from the coronavirus, marking the highest number of deaths announced in a single day as the statewide toll eclipsed 1,000.

As Chicago and Illinois grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, here’s what else happened in the city and around the state.

News

8:56 p.m. ‘I feel like I lost the battle for my husband,’ widow of dead Cook County Jail detainee says

Cassandra Greer-Lee (left), widow of former Cook County Jail detainee Nickolas Lee, stands with activist Carolyn Ruff outside the Cook County Jail on Thursday, April, 16, four days after her husband died.

Andy Grimm/Sun-Times

Nickolas Lee was struggling to breathe, much less hold up his end of the conversation as he talked on the phone with his wife Saturday night from a Stroger Hospital bed.

“I told him a lot of people are beating this thing, and he was going to be one of them,” Cassandra Lee-Greer told her high school sweetheart.

The 42-year-old, who had been transferred to Stroger from the Cook County Jail just six days earlier, died Sunday morning.

Lee ended up in jail in February for a 2018 armed robbery — a case he thought he had a good shot of beating.

But in March, he noticed two detainees on his tier had the flu-like symptoms that sounded like what his wife had been telling him were telltale signs of an illness spreading across the globe. A few days later, he came down with a sore throat. Chills, muscle aches and a loss of sense of smell and taste followed. He tested positive for COVID-19. A week later, he was transported from the jail’s Cermak medical facility to Stroger, where he died of cardiac arrest likely caused by complications related to coronavirus.

He was the third Cook County Jail detainee to die after contracting COVID-19.

Reporter Andy Grimm has the full story.

8:13 p.m. Abbott Labs’ touted rapid COVID-19 test not widely available around Chicago, Sun-Times finds

The Abbott ID NOW test for COID-19 uses a portable, toaster-sized machine to search for a small section of the virus’ genome in a sample.

The Abbott ID NOW test for COID-19 uses a portable, toaster-sized machine to search for a small section of the virus’ genome in a sample.

Provided

Abbott Laboratories’ ID NOW test for COVID-19, which can display a positive result in as little as five minutes and a negative result in 13 minutes, has been lauded by President Donald Trump as “a whole new ballgame” in expanding testing for the disease.

But it’s still not widely available in Chicago and the suburbs, a Chicago Sun-Times survey found.

Though the Lake County company won’t say where the recently approved tests have been distributed, the University of Chicago hospitals, Rush University Medical Center, University of Illinois Health, AMITA Health and Physicians Immediate Care said they have Abbott’s rapid tests at some of their locations.

And Walgreens has said it has the Abbott rapid test at its drive-through testing sites in Austin and Bolingbrook.

The Advocate Health chain of hospitals said it does not have the Abbott rapid test.

A Northwestern Memorial Hospital spokesman would not say whether Northwestern has the rapid test. Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood and NorthShore University HealthSystem didn’t respond to requests for information.

Read the full story by Stephanie Zimmerman.


7:50 p.m. Medical examiner confirms 74 more COVID-19 deaths, bringing Cook County toll to 784

The Cook County medical examiner’s office confirmed 74 more coronavirus-related deaths Wednesday, raising the county’s total to 784.

The adults’ ages ranged from 39 to 97, the medical examiner’s office said. Cook County makes up about 73 percent of the 1,072 deaths across Illinois.

Read more from the Sun-Times wire here.

7:02 p.m. Public health expert: ‘Marshall Plan’ needed to redress coronavirus race disparities

The coronavirus pandemic has turned a light on long accepted inequities like the segregation that has created pockets of poverty and violence on Chicago’s South and West sides, requiring nothing short of a “Marshall Plan” to redress them, according to a leading public health expert.

“Many Americans are shocked by the data emerging from multiple cities showing the disproportionate over-representation of African Americans — and in some cities Latinos as well — in terms of COVID-19 mortality,” lauded social scientist David R. Williams, of Harvard University, said Wednesday in a teleconference by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the country’s largest public health philanthropy.

“The striking disparities we are seeing are not the fault of individuals, families and communities that are experiencing them. Instead, they reflect longstanding policies that have created pervasive social and economic inequalities in the United States,” Williams continued, as the U.S. notched 637,716 coronavirus cases; 30,826 deaths.

Read the full story by Maudlyne Ihejirika.

6:34 p.m. COVID-19 test result mix-up puts family at risk

Joslyn Ewing-Brown believes she and her two children were put at risk after Roseland Community Hospital mistakenly told her she had tested positive for the deadly virus COVID-19.

That positive test actually was from her mother, whose name is Joslyn Ewing. And Ewing-Brown wouldn’t find out about the mix-up for a full day.

Ewing-Brown was told by the hospital she couldn’t be around her children and she should immediately self-quarantine. They also suggested a family member look after her kids in the meantime, so her mother — the person who actually had tested positive — came to get her two grandsons.

“My kids were having a blast at their grandma’s for that whole day, they were hugging and embracing her, not knowing that she was the one actually sick,” Ewing-Brown said. “This is really scary.”

Read the full story by Manny Ramos.

6:30 p.m. UChicago announces tuition freeze, but students still threaten payment strike

Citing the coronavirus pandemic and its “profound” impact on University of Chicago students and their families, school officials have announced a freeze on the overall rate students pay for tuition, housing and fees.

But students who are threatening to refuse to pay tuition when it’s due at the end of the month — who previously asked for the rate to be cut in half — say the school’s efforts don’t go far enough.

In a letter to students sent earlier this week, university officials said there would be no increase “in the combined total” of tuition, housing and fees for college students for the 2020-2021 school year and that a “detailed breakdown of charges for each area will be finalized in the next few weeks.”

“The University of Chicago remains deeply committed to ensuring that students from every background, regardless of financial need, can find a home here,” Provost Ka Yee C. Lee and Dean of the College John Boyer wrote in the letter. “We recognize the economic pressure currently felt by many College students and families. The University will continue to do what it can to support its community during this unprecedented time.”

Reporter Matt Hendrickson has the full story.

6:07 p.m. CPS wrong to send 3rd quarter report cards amid pandemic, Chicago Teachers Union says

The Chicago Teachers Union on Thursday was highly critical of Chicago Public Schools’ decision to forge ahead with third quarter report cards despite students’ learning having been severely disrupted the past month while schools closed because of the coronavirus.

The union strongly chimed after frustrated teachers and parents took to social media to air their concerns about an announcement that CPS would end the academic quarter and finalize grades as previously scheduled.

Many called it another sign of inequity hurting the most under-resourced students in the district. Though CPS is working to distribute 100,000 laptops and tablets to students who need them, tens of thousands are still without computers this week as the grading quarter comes to a close.

CPS’ schedule had reflected an end to the third quarter Thursday, with an institute day for teachers Friday and report cards to be picked up at schools next week. Lots of students, parents and teachers assumed that would change given the ongoing struggles with launching remote learning. But the only ch ange, the district announced in a letter to families Thursday, was that report cards would be mailed home instead.

Reporter Nader Issa has the full story.

5:29 p.m. Lightfoot hints strongly that in-classroom school year is over

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday hinted strongly that the in-classroom school year is over for Chicago Public School students and their counterparts across the state, but said the final decision is up to Gov. J.B. Pritzker and she would like to be part of that discussion.

Pritzker’s original stay-at-home order was to expire April 7. He already has extended it once — until April 30 — and has hinted for days about a second extension deep into May.

Meanwhile, governors in several other states — and New York City Mayor Bill DiBlasio — have ordered their public school buildings closed for the rest of the academic year.

Against that backdrop, Lightfoot was asked about the possibility that Illinois school buildings also would remain closed.

“We have not had that conversation yet with the governor. Although we are hearing that he may make some kind of announcement later this week,” the mayor said.

“Certainly, we’d love to be in conversation with the governor and his team about that before any announcement happens.”

Reporters Fran Spielman and Nader Issa have the full story.

5:03 p.m. Illinois sees biggest spike in coronavirus deaths — 125 — as toll tops 1,000

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has a property tax controversy of his own.

Fran Spielman / Sun-Times file

Illinois health officials on Thursday said 125 more people have died from the coronavirus, marking the highest number of deaths announced in a single day as the statewide toll eclipsed 1,000 lives lost.

There were also 1,140 newly confirmed cases, bringing the state’s tally of total positive cases to 25,733.

In total, 1,073 people have died from the coronavirus in Illinois. The virus also spread to another county, with 90 of 102 counties reporting positive cases.

The grim daily death toll is a reminder the state might not have reached its peak, although Gov. J.B. Pritzker has for days signaled some optimism based on the doubling rate of infections slowing down. Hospitals are also not yet at capacity, and officials said Chicago’s ICU beds this week went from just 16% of beds available, to 24%.

Read the full story from reporter Tina Sfondeles.


4:45 p.m. Trump unveils phased approach to reopening economy

WASHINGTON — New White House guidelines outline a phased approach to restoring normal commerce and services, but only for places with strong testing and seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases.

President Donald Trump unveiled his administration’s plans to ease social distancing requirements on a call Thursday with the nation’s governors. The new guidelines are aimed at clearing the way for an easing of restrictions in areas with low transmission of the coronavirus, while keeping them in place in harder-hit locations.

Places with declining infections and strong testing would begin a three-phased gradual reopening of businesses and schools, with each phase lasting at least 14 days, meant to ensure that the virus outbreak doesn’t accelerate again.

Read the full report and guidelines here.

4:08 p.m. Layoffs and pay cuts are now striking more white collar jobs

WASHINGTON — First, it was bars, restaurants, hotels. And clothing stores, movie theaters, entertainment venues. And countless small businesses, from bookstores to barber shops.

Now, the record-setting flood of layoffs unleashed by the viral outbreak is extending beyond the services industries that bore the initial brunt and are still suffering most. White collar employees, ranging from software programmers and legal assistants to sales associates and some health care workers, are absorbing layoffs or salary cuts. So are workers in other occupations, like construction and real estate.

The mounting toll of job losses resulted last week in 5.2 million new applications for unemployment benefits, the Labor Department said Thursday. That raised the total number of laid-off workers in the month since the virus all but shut down the economy to 22 million — by far the worst run of U.S. job losses on record.

“There really is no industry that is immune from the effects of the outbreak,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at job listings website Glassdoor, said.

Employee discussions of layoffs on Glassdoor have jumped 47% among information technology firms and 64% in finance, Zhao said. Such discussions have nearly doubled among workers in health care. That’s no longer surprising: Many doctors’ offices and other health providers have cut back on nonessential procedures, and some are shedding jobs.

Read the full report here.

3:41 p.m. Anyone showing mild COVID-19 symptoms can now get tested. Here’s where to go.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Thursday that anyone displaying even mild symptoms consistent with COVID-19 now qualifies for testing in Illinois.

During his daily press briefing, Pritzker noted that the state has increased both its capacity to conduct and process tests. As a result, the state’s criteria for testing have been updated to include all patients showing signs of infection, even if they haven’t received a doctor’s orders.

“This will apply to our state-run drive-thru testing centers, and it is guidance that we will now be offering to providers, all across the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said whilea advising those with mild symptoms to call health care providers before showing up to get a test.

Last week, state officials took over two drive-thru sites that are being manned by members of the Illinois National Guard and were previously supported by the federal government. In addition to those sites on the Northwest Side and in McLean County, another drive-thru site opened this week at a vehicle emissions testing station in Markham.

Those three sites can now run a total of 1,800 tests a day, according to Pritzker, who said two more sites would soon be added.

Check out our updated map of COVID-19 testing sites in the Chicago area.

— Tom Schuba

3:09 p.m. CTA, Pace and Metra to receive $1.4 billion in federal stimulus money

Federal stimulus funds totaling $1.4 billion will be shared by the CTA, Pace and Metra, regional transit officials announced Thursday.

The CTA will receive $817.5 million, Pace will get $112.8 million and Metra will get $479.2 million — all in the form of reimbursements for operating costs. The money will be provided through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

More immediately, the Regional Transportation Authority — the region’s umbrella transit organization — allocated $35 million to be divided among CTA, Pace and Metra in the estimated amount that each agency lost in fares in the month of March due to the pandemic.

Reporter Mitch Dudek has the full story.

2:23 p.m. WHO says there’s no need to disinfect your mail

US-HEALTH-VIRUS

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Is it safe to open mail and packages during the pandemic?

There is no evidence that COVID-19 is spreading through mail or parcels, according to the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most of it is spread from droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes, which are inhaled by people nearby.

Health experts say the risks are very low that COVID-19 will remain on envelopes or packages and infect anyone who handles them.

The agency still recommends you wash your hands after handling packages. Read more here.


1:56 p.m. Lightfoot extends reprieve for motorists, businesses until June 1

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday extended until June 1 her decision to stop ticketing, booting and towing illegally parked vehicles — except for public safety reasons — to ease the burden on Chicagoans whose jobs and paychecks have been impacted by the coronavirus.

The temporary reprieve for motorists was to expire April 30, the same day Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s revised stay-at-home order is due to expire unless, as expected, it is extended once again.

The city’s new June 1 go-easy deadline will include a temporary suspension of late fees and defaults on payments plans for utility bills, parking and red light tickets, booting and other non-safety related violations.

There is no parking meter holiday. Motorists are still required to feed the meter boxes. But, City Hall will make no attempt to collect overdue debt and no interest will accumulate on existing payment plans. The ultimate penalty of booting vehicles has been suspended.

City Hall reporter Fran Spielman has the full story.

1:22 p.m. Coronavirus has hit the federal jail, so R. Kelly is asking for release — again

A little more than a week after a federal judge in New York denied his bid for release, R&B singer R. Kelly is again asking that judge to let him out of Chicago’s federal jail, where the coronavirus now appears to be spreading.

Though the Federal Bureau of Prisons has officially confirmed only one case of coronavirus among the inmates at Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, the head of Chicago’s federal defender program and other local defense attorneys say the number has risen to six.

Kelly’s new motion cites the same number, and it alleges the MCC “has not even engaged in any systematic testing of its detainees — unless and until they have exhibited symptoms of the virus — despite the well-known close and crowded conditions at that facility.”

The 53-year-old singer is the MCC’s most high-profile inmate. He’s been held there since his arrest last summer, while facing indictments in Chicago and Brooklyn. Judges in both court districts have rebuffed previous requests for release from Kelly.

Read the full story from Jon Seidel.

12:23 p.m. City offers free mental health resources for medical personnel and first responders

The City of Chicago has partnered with mental health providers and area hotels on a collection of resources for medical personnel and first responders on the front lines battling the COVID-19 crisis.

“You’ve got the city’s back and we’ve got yours,” concludes a quote from Mayor Lori Lightfoot at the top of the web page addressed to health care workers.

Available services include free virtual support groups provided by NAMI-Chicago, an affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness; free individual and group psychotherapy provided by the Chicago Department of Public Health; directions on how to obtain free childcare through Sittercity via the Child Care Assistance Program for essential workers; and information on the availability of hotel rooms for front-line workers who need to be quarantined outside of their homes.

Assuring the safety of health care workers who are at high risk of exposure to COVID-19 has been challenging across the U.S. as states contend with shortages of personal protection equipment (PPE) like masks and gloves. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Tuesday found that between 10% and 20% of U.S. coronavirus cases are health care workers, though they tended to be hospitalized at lower rates than other patients.

Click here to visit the city’s health care worker resource site.

12:10 p.m. Public health expert: ‘Marshall Plan’ needed to redress coronavirus race disparities

The coronavirus pandemic has turned a light on long accepted inequities like the segregation that has created pockets of poverty and violence on Chicago’s South and West sides, requiring nothing short of a “Marshall Plan” to redress them, according a leading public health expert.

“Many Americans are shocked by the data emerging from multiple cities showing the disproportionate over-representation of African Americans — and in some cities Latinos as well — in terms of COVID-19 mortality,” lauded social scientist David R. Williams, of Harvard University, said Wednesday in a teleconference by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, the country’s largest public health philanthropy.

“The striking disparities we are seeing are not the fault of individuals, families and communities that are experiencing them. Instead, they reflect longstanding policies that have created pervasive social and economic inequalities in the United States,” Williams continued, as the U.S. notched 637,716 coronavirus cases; 30,826 deaths.

“The coronavirus is a call to action. It gives us a chance to make a commitment to do better than we have done in the past. Call it a ‘Marshall Plan’ for disadvantaged communities.”

Read more from Sun-Times reporter Maudlyne Ihejirika.

11:37 a.m. What contact tracing in Illinois might look like

Gov J.B. Pritzker has identified contact tracing as one of the measures necessary to ease the stringent statewide social restrictions, along with expanding diagnostic testing and identifying a treatment for the virus.

During Wednesday’s press briefing, Pritzker said he’s been in touch with Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and representatives from the Boston-based nonprofit Partners in Health, who announced a joint initiative earlier this month to deploy 1,000 people to conduct contact tracing in that state.

“We’re looking at putting that together for the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said.

After identifying a confirmed case, a patient’s contacts should be alerted and in some cases isolated or quarantined, according to the World Health Organization. Contacts should then be monitored for symptoms and tested for signs of infection.

The need for widespread contact tracing is underpinned by an estimate included in a recent report from the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, which stated that a single person can infect an average of two to three others. That number, however, can be much larger, as evidenced in a report earlier this month from the Centers for Disease Control that detailed a single “super-spreader” in Chicago who passed COVID-19 onto 15 others, killing three.

Read the full story from reporter Tom Schuba here.

10:10 a.m. Rams’ Brian Allen is 1st NFL player to reveal positive COVID-19 test

Los Angeles Rams center Brian Allen says he tested positive for COVID-19 three weeks ago.

Allen is the first active NFL player to acknowledge testing positive during the coronavirus pandemic.

The third-year pro is not hospitalized and is “feeling good,” according to a statement issued by the Rams on Wednesday night only after Allen spoke to Fox Sports about his positive test.

Click here for more.

8:50 a.m. Lori Lightfoot and Trevor Noah discuss Chicago’s coronavirus response on ‘The Daily Show’

“The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah loves Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s PSAs. In fact, he said he initially thought they were too funny to be real.

The comedian gave Lightfoot the compliment during her appearance on the Comedy Central show Wednesday night.

“Some of the PSAs that you started releasing were some of the funniest, that I didn’t even think were real until I realized they actually came from you,” said Noah via video call.

His favorite part? “Telling all the kids that are still going out to play basketball: ‘Your jump shot is not gonna improve, stay home,’” he told the mayor with a smile.

Lightfoot said her PSAs — one encouraging folks to stay home during the shutdown, and another urging Chicagoans to fill out their census forms — were inspired by the viral memes that popped up after she closed down the lakefront, and by her constituents’ need for entertainment at a time when there are no sports to watch or concerts to go to.

Read the full recap of Lightfoot’s appearance here.

7:53 a.m. 5.2 million more seek unemployment aid as US layoffs spread

The wave of layoffs that has engulfed the U.S. economy since the coronavirus struck forced 5.2 million more people to seek unemployment benefits last week, the government reported Thursday.

Roughly 22 million have sought jobless benefits in the past month — easily the worst stretch of U.S. job losses on record. All told, roughly nearly 12 million people are now receiving unemployment checks, roughly matching the peak reached in January 2010, shortly after the Great Recession officially ended.

In Illinois, 141,049 residents filed for unemployment benefits last week, down from a revised 201,041 filings in the week of April 4. In all, 634,625 Illinoisans have filed new claims for benefits in the past four weeks.

Read the full report here.

7:10 a.m. How hard will coronavirus shutdowns hit Illinois’ economy?

For weeks, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been asked just how bad the state budget shortfall would be in light of a coronavirus outbreak that has devastated the nation’s economy and killed nearly a thousand people in Illinois alone.

On Wednesday — at Pritzker’s 38th consecutive daily coronavirus briefing — the Democratic governor unveiled the grim projections from his budget office: $2.7 billion less revenue than expected for the budget the state is currently operating under, and $4.6 billion less revenue for a budget plan for the fiscal year that begins on July 1.

With short-term borrowing to get through the pandemic, the total shortfall for that Fiscal Year 2021 budget would be $6.2 billion, when compared to a spending plan Pritzker released in February.

And the governor made a soft pitch for his pet graduated income tax proposal. His office says next year’s shortfall rises to $7.4 billion without it. Asked whether it’s time to abandon his No. 1 policy goal, Pritzker would only say he would argue we need it “now more than ever.”

Read the full story from Tina Sfondeles here.

6:44 a.m. As coronavirus cases rise, public health experts race to reach Latinos

A woman wearing a protective mask walks past a closed children’s clothing store in the Hispanic, Little Village in Chicago, Wednesday, April 15, 2020. The first U.S. economic indicators to capture the devastation brought on by the pandemic have begun to arrive, showing a plunge in retail sales exceeding what happened during the economic crisis a decade ago. 

Dr. Marina Del Rios has lost count of how many coronavirus myths she’s had to dispel on social media.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to correct my own family on rumors flying around the internet about how if you do gargles with vinegar or lemon juice and baking soda, that somehow that’s going to protect your throat from the entry of the virus,” she said.

So when a Puerto Rican community group asked her to make a bilingual video about the virus, Del Rios, a professor of clinical emergency medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago, quickly said yes — but hit a wall when looking for sources on COVID-19 in Spanish.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “had plenty of information in English,” Del Rios said, “but when you look at the Spanish version of the website and click on a lot of those links, it takes you to a website that’s in English.”

Del Rios is a member of the Illinois Latino COVID-19 Initiative, a new collective of more than two dozen public health experts and elected officials racing to reach as many people in the state’s large Latino community before the virus spreads further.

Reporter Carlos Ballesteros has the full story.


New Cases


Analysis & Commentary

6:07 p.m. EDITORIAL: Let’s keep our foot on the gas against the coronavirus, Chicago — it’s working

The coronavirus stay-at-home order hasn’t been easy on Chicago. But we can’t let up — or the bug could come roaring back.

We know it’s tough to be indoors. We see the economy cratering. We see the jobs being lost.

Statewide on Thursday, there were some grim numbers, too: Health officials announced that another 125 people had died from the virus. That’s the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in Illinois in a single day. The state also reported 1,140 confirmed new cases, raising the total to 25,733. More than 1,000 Illinoisans have died in all.

Despite this, Gov. J.B. Pritzker for days has signaled some optimism based on the doubling rate of infections slowing down. And his stay-at-home order is slowing the spread of the virus in Chicago — flattening the curve — City Hall says.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration announced Wednesday that the city has seen 9,666 confirmed cases of the coronavirus cases and 347 COVID-19 deaths as of this week. But the city could have suffered more than 62,000 COVID-19 cases and 2,000 deaths by now had Pritzker not issued his order on March 21 and had the city not closed its parks and lakefront, officials say.

“[W]e do think it’s important to let Chicagoans know why staying home is not just a catch phrase,” Lightfoot said, “but it’s something that we believe is vitally important from a public health standpoint.”

Staying indoors is also the best way we can protect the health of — and stand with — all the police officers, firefighters, nurses, doctors and others risking their lives.

Read the full editorial from the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board here.

3:41 p.m. It’s just nuts to run ‘essential workers’ out of the country during a pandemic

The cruelty of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies has been in plain view for years. The shortsightedness of those plans could do a lot of damage to America amid a pandemic.

To fight the coronavirus, we need a reliable workforce in hospitals as well as in the humblest jobs, such as farm work.

It’s alarming then that in the coming months America could lose about 29,000 doctors, nurses, nursing assistants and other frontline health care professionals because of their immigration status.

And, at a time when migrant farmworkers are putting their health at risk by working and living in dense conditions on farms, the administration wants to lower their wages.

Read more of Marlen Garcia column here.

10:19 a.m. Gullible people during a pandemic are a real danger

If nobody can be trusted, you see, the strongman is your only alternative.

That said, conspiracy theorists based in China, the United States and elsewhere are catching up fast. Only recently, for example, I saw a cheap politician on TV insinuate that hospitals report shortages of protective masks because nurses and doctors are stealing them to sell for profit.

Precisely, I suppose, as that eminence would do, given the chance.

But the real danger during a worldwide pandemic is that frightened people, gullible and easily hoodwinked under the best of circumstances, can be manipulated into blaming the contagion upon a favored enemy: preferably of a different race or religion.

And that way lies catastrophe.

Read the full column by Gene Lyons here.

6:36 a.m. When farmers plow under crops in a nation of bounty, the tragedy of COVID-19 becomes all the more vivid

America has a food problem.

When, during this pandemic, we see dairy farmers dump milk into ditches and when we see vegetable farmers plow their crops back into the soil, it is tragically obvious that major agricultural markets have dried up.

It is an indication, as well, that our nation faces an unsettling new challenge in getting food to where it is needed most — one that the federal government needs to tackle immediately.

Chicago knows a lot about food. At our height in the last century, we shipped more than 80% of the nation’s meat supply from processing plants at the city’s stockyards. To this day, Illinois remains a key agricultural state that exports food globally.

But the systems needed to efficiently move food to market, especially perishables, take years to develop. Private companies are struggling to redesign them during the coronavirus pandemic, especially at a time when some of their own workers have fallen ill or are afraid to come to work.

Read the full editorial from the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board.

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