More and more Illinois restaurants and bars can open their doors to indoor diners.
But the coronavirus pandemic isn’t over yet. Here’s a rundown of what else happened Monday in Chicago and around Illinois.
News
8:57 p.m. 30 counties in NW, North-Central Illinois cleared for indoor service
Restaurants, bars and other businesses in nearly 30 counties in northwest and west-central Illinois got some good news Monday.
The Illinois Department of Public Health announced it is moving Region 1 and Region 2 to Phase 4, allowing many businesses, as well as museums, to reopen, effective immediately.
This means restaurants and bars in those regions can allow indoor dining and drinking for parties up to 10 people, but tables should be spread out, keeping at least 6 feet between parties. Select indoor recreation facilities, such as bowling alleys and skating rinks, also can reopen.
Museums will also be open, though limited to 25% capacity.
Phase 4 also allowsmeetings and social events to take place again, with a maximum of 50 people or 50% of room capacity. Multiple groups can also gather in the same facility if they are socially distanced and in separate rooms.
Read Manny Ramos’ full story here.
7:34 p.m. Biden signals support for CTU’s COVID-19 safety concerns as top union chief briefs White House
President Joe Biden on Monday waded into the Chicago Teachers Union’s standoff with City Hall over reopening schools, indicating support for teachers’ COVID-19 safety concerns after, the Sun-Times has learned, White House senior staffers were briefed about the impasse by American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten.
“The teachers, I know they want to work,” Biden said when asked about the CTU by a reporter at a news conference after an event on American manufacturing. “They just want to work in a safe environment, and as safe as we can rationally make it, and we can do that.”
To the question, should “teachers return to school,” Biden said, “we should make school classrooms safe and secure for the students, for the teachers and for the help that is in those schools maintaining those facilities.”
Biden did not directly reference Chicago in his reply nor Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, whose chief critics are the politically powerful CTU.
Reporters Lynn Sweet, Nader Issa, and Fran Spielman have the full story.
5:03 p.m. Blackhawks’ Alex DeBrincat, Adam Boqvist placed on NHL’s COVID-19 Protocol list
The Blackhawks’ roster is no longer completely untouched by COVID-19.
Forward Alex DeBrincat and defenseman Adam Boqvist were placed on the NHL’s COVID-19 Protocol list Monday, the league announced.
No additional information was immediately available.
Players can end up on the Protocol list by testing positive, showing symptoms and isolating or coming in contact with someone else who tested positive. DeBrincat and Boqvist are close friends off the ice, so the contract tracing situation could plausibly apply here.
The rest of the Hawks traveled to Nashville on Monday and are currently scheduled to play a back-to-back against the Predators on Tuesday and Wednesday.
4 p.m. Black, Latino Chicagoans trail in COVID-19 vaccinations
White Chicagoans are getting vaccinated for COVID-19 at far higher rates than Black and Latino residents, city officials said Monday.
Of the more than 100,000 vaccinations so far, Black Chicagoans account for only 15% while more than half of the city’s residents who got shots are white. Latinos make up 17% and Asians account for 14%, city officials said.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the trend alarming and promised that she’ll push to get more Black and Brown residents vaccinated. Lightfoot said she’s targeting 15 South and West side communities for an outreach blitz to push for more participation during the next round of shots.
“Unexpectedly low numbers of Black and Brown Chicagoans have taken the vaccine so far,” Lightfoot said at a news conference in which she received a shot. “If we don’t reverse this trend, we will continue to see more Black and Brown fathers, mothers, grandparents, sons, daughters die of this virus when a vaccine is right here, right now for free for all.”
While the first phase of vaccinations went largely to health care workers, the city is entering into a next round that offers shots to those 65 or older as well as to many essential workers, including police and firefighters, teachers, daycare employees and grocery store workers.
Read Brett Chase’s full story here.
3:37 p.m. Biden to reinstate COVID-19 travel rules, add South Africa
President Joe Biden on Monday will formally reinstate COVID-19 travel restrictions on non-U.S. travelers from Brazil, Ireland, the United Kingdom and 26 other European countries that allow travel across open borders, according to two White House officials.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the order, also confirmed Sunday that South Africa would be added to the restricted list because of concerns about a variant of the virus that has spread beyond that nation.
Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci called Biden’s decision “prudent” Monday in a round of television interviews.
“We have concern about the mutation that’s in South Africa,” Fauci told “CBS This Morning.” “We’re looking at it very actively. It is clearly a different and more ominous than the one in the U.K., and I think it’s very prudent to restrict travel of noncitizens.”
Read the full story from the Associated Press here.
2:33 p.m. Tinley Park gets first large vaccination site in Cook County suburbs as state moves into next stage of inoculation plan
The first large-scale vaccination center in the Cook County suburbs is scheduled to open on Tuesday, an appointment-only site in Tinley Park that officials say will eventually be able to administer 18,000 shots a week.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and other officials unveiled the site Monday as the state moves into a new phase of the state’s vaccination program, one that will allow frontline essential workers and those 65 and over to begin receiving the inoculations.
But despite moving ahead to Phase 1B of the immunization plan, one county health official cautioned the process would be a “marathon, and not a sprint.”
The vaccination site, located at the Tinley Park Convention Center in the southwest suburb, will begin offering vaccinations by appointment only, starting at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday and will be able administer 9,000 vaccinations a week initially and double that when the state’s federal supply of doses increases, Pritzker said.
Read Rachel Hinton and Isabelle Sarraf’s full story here.
12:25 p.m. CPS teachers discuss COVID-19 fears about returning to classrooms
On the day thousands of Chicago teachers were originally required to return to their classrooms, members of the Chicago Teachers Union held a news conference to detail their experiences with COVID-19 and the difficulties they’ve faced in negotiating with Chicago Public Schools.
Dawn Kelly, a special education teacher at Bond Elementary in Englewood, was among the special education and pre-Kindergarten teachers who were locked out earlier this month when CPS mandated they return to their buildings. Kelly, who has hypertension, said her medical accommodations were eventually approved by the district, but not until after she had missed a week of school.
“My families were devastated. They had no one to cover my class, but I was sitting here in front of a computer,” Kelly said. “Why couldn’t I access my children?
“I was locked out for over a week,” Kelly continued. “My special education babies did not receive their services. They did not receive proper education.”
Diana Muhammad, a teacher at Beasley Academic Center in Washington Park, spoke about sitting with her 5-year-old daughter in the ICU and said it was something she would never wish on another parent.
Her daughter’s situation was especially concerning, Muhammad said, because she developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome weeks after she had COVID-19. Muhammad said her daughter never showed symptoms of the coronavirus, so she’s concerned other asymptomatic children might show up to school and unknowingly spread the disease.
“It’s alarming to hear the insensitivity of the demands for all of these teachers to go back involuntarily and to know there were nights that I sat up looking at machines hoping that my daughter’s heart rate is going up,” Muhammad said.
Read Sam Kelly’s full story here.
10:51 a.m. Illinois’ seven-day positivity rate drops to 4.8% as state prepares to enter next phase of vaccine distribution plan
As Illinois prepares to enter the next phase of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s vaccination plan this week, the state’s coronavirus metrics took another step in the right direction Sunday.
State health officials reported Illinois’ smallest daily caseload in more than three months.
The Illinois Department of Public Health announced 3,292 new confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases, which were found among the 90,138 tests processed in the last day for a daily positivity rate of about 3.7%. That’s the fewest new cases recorded in a day since Oct. 19.
The statewide positivity rate, which experts use to gauge how rapidly the virus is spreading, is down to 4.8%, the lowest it’s been since Oct. 14. That figure has been on the decline since it peaked this month at 8.6% on Jan. 4.
Statewide, COVID-19 hospitalizations are also the lowest they’ve been since late October. As of Saturday, 2,994 beds were occupied statewide by coronavirus patients, with 617 of those patients in intensive care units and 321 on ventilators, officials said.
Read Madeline Kenney’s full story here.
9:44 a.m. Mexico’s president says he’s tested positive for COVID-19
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Sunday he has tested positive for COVID-19 and that the symptoms are mild.
Mexico’s president, who has been criticized for his handling of his country’s pandemic and for not setting an example of prevention in public, said on his official Twitter account that he is under medical treatment.
“I regret to inform you that I am infected with COVID-19,” he tweeted. “The symptoms are mild but I am already under medical treatment. As always, I am optimistic. We will all move forward.”
José Luis Alomía Zegarra, Mexico’s director of epidemiology, said López Obrador had a “light” case of COVID-19 and was “isolating at home.”
Mexico’s president wrote that while he recovered Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero would be taking over for him in his daily news conferences, at which he usually speaks for two hours without breaks each weekday.
López Obrador, 67, has rarely been seen wearing a mask and continued to keep up a busy travel schedule taking commercial flights.
He has also resisted locking down the economy, noting the devastating effect it would have on so many Mexicans who live day to day, despite that the country has registered nearly 150,000 COVID-19 deaths and more than 1.7 million infections. Last week, the country registered its highest levels of infections and deaths to date.
Read the full Associated Press story here.
New cases
- The Illinois Department of Public Health on Sunday announced 3,292 new confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases, which were found among the 90,138 tests processed in the last day for a daily positivity rate of about 3.7%. That’s the fewest new cases recorded in a day since Oct. 19.
- Despite the overall progress, the respiratory virus is still claiming lives at an alarming rate. About 77 people have died from complications with the virus each day over the last week, including an additional 40 fatalities announced Sunday. Half of Sunday’s deaths, which brought the pandemic death toll to 18,750, were reported in the Chicago area.
- Statewide, COVID-19 hospitalizations are also the lowest they’ve been since late October. As of Saturday, 2,994 beds were occupied statewide by coronavirus patients, with 617 of those patients in intensive care units and 321 on ventilators, officials said.
Analysis and commentary
1:13 p.m. As a parent, I want Chicago teachers back in their classrooms
I do not understand why teachers cannot go back to their jobs in the classroom. Isn’t it their responsibility to show up to work, as so many essential workers do? I am sure medical personnel, grocery store workers, postal service employees, and the list goes on, all feel hesitant about leaving the safety of their homes to go out and earn their living.
With kids doing remote learning, parents are in a stressful situation about doing their jobs outside the house. As a parent of a special needs boy, all special education students are missing out on therapy time that they will never get back. There’s a good chance they will regress due to their daily schedule being changed. Special education students very much require a structured, educational environment in which to learn.
As his mom, I do my job in keeping him clean, fed, loved and entertained. But I am not a teacher or therapist and I am here alone. Schools have staff to make sure kids are on track and meet their goals. Teachers know their union will back them up. Most workers don’t have a union, but they suit up and show up with their masks and face the day.
I wish teachers would realize they are not the only ones fighting a pandemic. I just hope that if a teacher needs medical attention, the medical personnel needed are available for them and not afraid of leaving their house that day.
— Julie Miklos, Clearing
