Coronavirus live blog, Dec. 19, 2020: Illinois sees 12-day streak of 100 or more COVID-19 related deaths

Latest

108 more Illinois coronavirus deaths, 7,562 new cases

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Public health officials on Saturday announced 108 more Illinois residents have died of COVID-19, which has spread to an additional 7,562 residents.

The new cases were diagnosed among 96,851 tests, slightly raising the state’s average positivity rate over the last week to 8.2%.

That number still has gradually trended downward over the last month since the state hit the peak of its coronavirus resurgence in late November, along with other key metrics.

The latest caseload marked the ninth straight day with fewer than 10,000 cases reported by the Illinois Department of Public Health, while the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients has steadily declined over that period, too, down to 4,624 as of Friday night.

But the state is stuck in an unprecedented 12-day streak of reporting 100 or more deaths, the worst stretch of the pandemic. The latest victims included 55 Chicago-area residents.

Read the full story here.

News

1:55 p.m. Advocate Condell Medical Center pauses COVID-19 vaccinations after 4 people react negatively

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville has temporarily paused coronavirus vaccinations after four of its employees reported feeling adverse reactions.

The four employees experienced “tingling and elevated heart rate” after getting their vaccinations, Advocate Aurora Health said in a statement. Three of them are doing well at home, while the other is receiving additional treatment.

The four employees who reacted negatively to the vaccine make up fewer than .15% of the roughly 3,000 employees who have received vaccinations so far, the health center said. Advocate said it’s pausing the vaccinations at the Libertyville medical center “out of an abundance of caution.”

Read the full story here.

1:39 p.m. He’s ‘good to go’: Dr. Fauci tells kids he vaccinated Santa Claus

Santa Claus may be immune to COVID-19 but he now has an extra layer of protection thanks to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert.

Fauci, who will celebrate his birthday on Christmas eve, told children watching a “Sesame Street” town hall put on by CNN Saturday that he vaccinated Kris Kringle himself.

In the clip, a masked Elmo told viewers that his friend has a question for Santa. Lucy, 8, from San Rafael, California posed a question that is troubling many children this season: ”How did Santa get the vaccine and is it safe for him to go in the house?”

Connor, 9, from Mount Holly, New Jersey, and Paxton, 6, from Geneva, Illinois, voiced the same question.

“Well, I have to say I took care of that for you because I was worried that you’d all be upset,” Fauci said in response.

Read the full story here.

1:27 p.m. General sorry for ‘miscommunication’ over COVID-19 vaccine shipments

The Army general in charge of getting COVID-19 vaccines across the United States apologized on Saturday for “miscommunication” with states over the number of doses to be delivered in the early stages of distribution.

“I failed. I’m adjusting. I am fixing and we will move forward from there,” Gen. Gustave Perna told reporters in a telephone briefing.

Perna’s remarks came a day after a second vaccine was added in the fight against COVID-19, which has killed more than 312,000 people in the U.S. Governors in more than a dozen states have said the federal government has told them that next week’s shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be less than originally projected.

Perna acknowledged the criticism and accepted blame.

“I want to take personal responsibility for the miscommunication,” he said. “I know that’s not done much these days. But I am responsible. ... This is a Herculean effort and we are not perfect.”

Read the full story here.

9:18 a.m. 1,500 Cook County health care, sheriff’s employees plan day-long strike for Tuesday

More than 1,500 employees of Cook County’s health care and sheriff’s divisions will go on strike Tuesday if their union can’t hammer out a deal with the county for pandemic pay and safer working conditions, among other demands.

In a statement Friday, SEIU Local 73 — the union representing county health technicians, service and maintenance workers, and sheriff’s office employees — alleges the county has refused to bargain in good faith for nearly three months, walking out on negotiations, canceling dates or refusing to set them altogether.

The union also says the county spent millions in CARES Act funds to fly in strikebreakers from around the country.

A spokesman for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the Cook County sheriff’s office maintains they have bargained in good faith and referred further questions to the president’s office.

“We have respiratory therapists and health care workers working to save lives. We have election workers who made sure the presidential election ran smoothly. We have custodians sanitizing courthouses and public offices to keep people safe. We have office workers at the County jail, a hotspot for COVID, coming in every day,” SEIU Local 73 President Dian Palmer said. “The least Preckwinkle could do is respect, protect and pay these essential workers by bargaining in good faith and providing pandemic pay to all essential workers.”

Read the full story here.

New Cases

• Public health officials on Friday announced the coronavirus COVID-19 has killed another 181 residents and spread to 7,377 more people statewide.
• Cook County Jail reported 370 positive COVID-19 cases on Dec. 7, setting a new record for the facility that saw one of the largest outbreaks of confirmed cases of any location in the country last spring.
• Two more employees have tested positive for the coronavirus in Cook County’s Office of the Chief Judge. A total of 216 employees working in Office of the Chief Judge have tested positive for COVID-19. Additionally, 17 judges have tested positive since the start of the pandemic.

Analysis & Commentary

9:21 a.m. Pfleger plans NY’s Eve march to protest the ‘COVID and carnage’ that has devastated Chicago this year

It’s a case of cheer and fear.

It’s the Christmas season’s most deadly couple: COVID-19 and gun violence.

The coronavirus may have claimed the lives of 3,850 Chicagoans through the middle of this past week, but the violence of the gun has now resulted in the shooting of nearly 4,000 people in Chicago.

Gun violence, notes anti-gun activist priest Michael Pfleger, has killed nearly 750 people this year so far.

Angered by these alarming stats, Sneed is told Pfleger plans to repeat his 2016 New Year’s Eve march down North Michigan Avenue, when cross-carrying protestors draped themselves with names of Chicago’s 2016 murder victims.

Only this time Pfleger will be leading protesters carrying Chicago flag replicas riddled with bullet holes and “dripping” with blood.

“We can’t just be silent over this murderous carnage in our city,” said Pfleger, who is pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church, located in Auburn Gresham on the South Side, which has been devastated by violence.

“The shooting deaths are now on their way to a move upwards,” he said. “These numbers are not acceptable, must not be acceptable.”

Read the full column from Michael Sneed here.