Two days after hundreds of demonstrators in Chicago and Springfield protested a statewide stay-at-home order that has rendered hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans jobless in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state is now “getting ready for a point where we can begin to reopen the economy.”
During an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Pritzker said Sunday that Illinois has “really bent the curve significantly” while noting that hospitalizations have only been “increasing barely.”
On Friday, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 977 of the 3,687 beds available in intensive care units across the state were open, although some regions of the state had more limited capacity. At hospitals in the northeast suburbs, for example, only 28 of 220 beds were available.
“We’re not through this yet, there’s no doubt, and we’ve been looking to see those numbers flatten,” Pritzker said of the number of hospitalizations. “We are seeing them flatten now.”
Experts agree social distancing measures will help quell the spread of the disease and keep hospitals from being inundated with COVID-19 patients. Asked about the protests against his revised stay-at-home order that took effect Friday, Pritzker said most Illinoisans have been following the rules and framed the protesters as “outliers.”
“Although they sometimes carry reprehensible signs and are attacking what we’re trying to do, we’re still trying to keep them healthy, as we are the 12.7 million Illinois across the state,” he said, referencing signs invoking Nazism that drew swift and widespread condemnation after being spotted at Friday’s Reopen Illinois rally outside the Thompson Center.
Pritzker, who is Jewish and helped found the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, specifically decried protesters hoisting signs with Nazi swastikas, noting at Saturday’s press briefing that the use of the symbol suggests “either that they believe in Nazism or they think it’s OK to throw the invective at people with a swastika.”
On Sunday’s television appearance, Pritzker remained focused on addressing the pandemic, noting that the state’s testing capacity has been expanded and officials are now working to implement a system to trace the contacts of those who have been infected.
As Pritzker touted the state’s efforts, he claimed that “much of what came out of the White House for many weeks was not helpful.”
President Donald Trump’s administration failed to use the Defense Production Act to manufacture critical supplies or help states obtain those needed for testing, he said. However, Pritzker credited the White House’s recent commitment to supply Illinois with 600,000 swabs this month to collect testing samples.
“I’m very grateful for that,” he said.
Pressed on whether aid from the federal government would be used to address underfunded pensions and serve as a “bailout” for Illinois as Trump recently suggested, Pritzker shot back that his administration had balanced this year’s budget and was primed to balance next year’s before the pandemic took hold.
“Let’s point out that all 50 states are suffering from a failure of revenues to come in over the last couple of months. Coronavirus has caused that. All of us are having to spend more on social services and health care to take care of people.”
