Coronavirus live blog, July 22, 2020: Pritzker promises millions to expand COVID-19 contact tracing in Illinois

Any Chicagoans hoping to escape wearing a mask in nearby Indiana will need to rethink their travel plans. Indiana now has a state-wide mask mandate, set to start next Monday.

That’s not all that happened in coronavirus-related news. Here’s what else happened Wednesday in Chicago and Illinois.

News

9 p.m. Pritzker promises millions to expand COVID-19 contact tracing in Illinois

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state will provide tens of millions of dollars in additional funding to public health departments and community organizations to help expand COVID-19 contact tracing across the state.

The pledge comes as the state announced the highest single-day total for coronavirus cases since early June.

Pritzker has been promisingsince April that he would step up efforts to track people potentially exposed to coronavirus patients. The practice, which involves tracking down people who were in contact with those who test positive, is regarded by health officials as key to limiting the virus’ spread and instrumental in saving lives.

“Contact tracing allows us to break the chain of transmission to prevent large outbreaks and, ultimately save lives,” Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said in a statement.

Pritzker is pledging more than $150 million to public health departments outside Cook County to help them bolster their contact tracing efforts. Another $60 million will be given to nine community organizations, also outside Cook, that will coordinate regional tracking efforts, state public health spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said.

Reporter Brett Chase has the full story.

7:54 p.m. Pritzker blames ‘virus deniers’ as state sees highest daily COVID-19 caseload since early June: ‘The enemy is you’

Illinois sees its worst day for new coronavirus cases in more than seven weeks, the testing positivity rate steadily rises — and Gov. J.B. Pritzker sees only one place to point the finger.

“The enemy is not your mask. If you’re not wearing a mask in public, you’re endangering everyone around you, so the enemy is you,” the Democratic governor said Wednesday.

It was his most dire warning yet that Illinois could soon see a devastating resurgence of COVID-19 cases if residents — and “virus-deniers” — don’t take precautions more seriously.

“The deadly nature of this virus is not a hoax. Choosing to go out in public without a mask is not a political statement,” Pritzker said during a Loop news conference. “It demonstrates a callous disregard for the people in your community and in your county and in our state and in our nation.”

A week after expressing worry over a “mild uptick” in Illinois coronavirus cases, Pritzker said “our numbers now appear to be gradually rising, and that’s very concerning.”

The Illinois Department of Public Health confirmed an additional 1,598 cases of the virus statewide on Wednesday, the highest total announced in a single day since early June.

Read the full story from reporter Mitchell Armentrout here.

6:53 p.m. CPS rethinking plan to keep high school juniors and seniors at home this fall

Chicago Public Schools is considering backing off a proposal to keep high school juniors and seniors in full-time remote learning in the fall as the rest of the district moves to partial in-classroom instruction.

Last week, CPS announced a “preliminary framework” that called on most students to return to school two days a week, but that had 11th and 12th graders starting the fall with online classes only.

But this week, schools chief Janice Jackson said parents should “stay tuned” on that component of the plan.

“We thought that that was the best approach, it was our best thinking on that day, but given the overwhelming response that I’ve been hearing from parents of 11th and 12th graders, that is something that we’re going to go back and look at,” Jackson said during a live-streamed conversation with Alison Arwady, the city health commissioner.

Arwady said officials would rethink reopening schools at all if Chicago reaches 400 new cases per day. Chicago hasn’t had a daily case count over 400 since May, but health officials have warned the city could be headed back in that direction if precautions aren’t taken. Chicago’s rolling 7-day average is around 230 cases.

Reporter Nader Issa has the full story.

5:46 p.m. US signs contract with Pfizer for COVID-19 vaccine doses

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will pay Pfizer nearly $2 billion for a December delivery of 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine the pharmaceutical company is developing, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced Wednesday.

The U.S. could buy another 500 million doses under the agreement, Azar said.

“Now those would, of course, have to be safe and effective” and approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Azar said during an appearance on Fox News.

Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE announced separately that the agreement is with HHS and the Defense Department for a vaccine candidate the companies are developing jointly. It is the latest in a series of similar agreements with other vaccine companies.

The agreement is part of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, under which multiple COVID-19 vaccines are being developed simultaneously. The program aims to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021.

Read the full story here.

4:50 p.m. CPS rethinking plan to keep high school juniors and seniors at home this fall

Chicago Public Schools is considering backing off a proposal to keep high school juniors and seniors in full-time remote learning in the fall as the rest of the district moves to partial in-classroom instruction.

Schools chief Janice Jackson said parents should “stay tuned” on that component of the plan for fall learning, which still could be entirely changed if the city sees another COVID-19 outbreak.

“We thought that that was the best approach, it was our best thinking on that day, but given the overwhelming response that I’ve been hearing from parents of 11th and 12th graders, that is something that we’re going to go back and look at,” Jackson said during a live-streamed conversation with Alison Arwady, the city health commissioner, this week.

As for the remainder of students who would return for at least two days of instruction per week in the fall, Arwady said officials would rethink reopening schools if Chicago reaches 400 new cases per day. Chicago hasn’t had a daily case count over 400 since May, but health officials have warned the city could be headed back in that direction if precautions aren’t taken. Chicago’s rolling 7-day average is around 230 cases.

Read the full story here.

3:59 p.m. US labs struggle amid massive testing surge; world virus cases top 15M

WASHINGTON — Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are actually undercutting the pandemic response.

With the U.S. tally of infections at 3.9 million Wednesday and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves, dealing with a crushing workload.

Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that asymptomatic people could be spreading the virus if they don’t isolate while they wait.

“There’s been this obsession with how many tests are we doing per day” said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned.”

Read the full story here.

3:10 p.m. Indiana governor imposing statewide face mask order starting Monday

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana will have a statewide face mask mandate starting next week, joining many other states in the attempt to slow the coronavirus spread, Gov. Eric Holcomb said Wednesday.

The order will apply to anyone ages 8 and older in any indoor public or business areas and at outdoor public spaces when sufficient distancing can’t be maintained. The order will take effect Monday.

Holcomb said his order will also require masks in schools for grades 3 and above by students, teachers and other employees.

Holcomb said a renewed growth in the number of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations necessitated the mask order. He said he did not want Indiana to have to follow other states and restore business restrictions that had been lifted in the past couple months.

Read the full story here.

1:57 p.m. Mask mandates spread across Indiana

Officials in Indiana’s second-largest county and one of the largest Indianapolis suburbs have adopted face mask mandates for residents and businesses in an attempt to s low the coronavirus spread.

The mandates throughout northwestern Indiana’s Lake County took effect Monday, while the order for the city of Fishers just northeast of Indianapolis will take effect Friday.

Those areas join a growing lists of cities and counties across the state imposing mask requirements. Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb has declined to issue a statewide mandate even while encouraging face masks as the state has seen recent growth in the number of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations.

Lake County’s health department issued the requirement for mouth and nose face covering inside a businesses or other public places where people cannot maintain at least 6 feet of social distancing. Municipal officials in Gary and Merrillville, both in Lake County, adopted similar orders.

Merrillville Town Council President Rick Bella said council members had discussed requiring masks for about a month.

“There’s a lot of different opinions about it, but our thoughts were, ’Hey, if it could prevent someone from getting sick, it’s just well worth it,” Bella said.

A mask requirement will also take effect Wednesday in rural northern Indiana’s Starke County. Similar orders have been issued for the cities of Indianapolis, Evansville and West Lafayette, along with LaPorte, St. Joseph, Elkhart and LaGrange counties in northern Indiana and Monroe County, which includes Bloomington and Indiana University’s main campus.

Read the full report here.

8:40 a.m. Auburn Gresham residents frustrated by weeks of missing mail delivery

Lashann Walker spent more than an hour Tuesday morning picking up her mail at her local post office in Auburn Gresham.

She had to. It hadn’t been delivered to her home for three weeks.

“I’ve been expecting a lot of mail that just hasn’t come in yet,” Walker said outside the Auburn Park branch post office, 8345 S. Ashland Ave.

The post office “didn’t inform me that they were running behind and if they did, I would’ve been here a long time ago,” Walker added. “Even now when I picked up my mail they still didn’t tell me when I will get some more mail. Like, will I have to come back up here every day?”

It’s not exactly clear what is causing home delivery delays in the South Side neighborhood; Walker was among half a dozen residents interviewed by the Sun-Times who told similar stories.

The problems have gotten the attention of the local congressman, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, who said his office has been bombarded with complaints.

Read the full report from Manny Ramos here.

8:19 a.m. Anticipating a ‘different’ holiday season amid pandemic, Walmart to remain closed Thanksgiving

Walmart stores will be closed this Thanksgiving, the retailer announced Tuesday.

In a memo to employees, Walmart U.S. president and CEO John Furner announced another bonus for employees and that stores will break from tradition and close for the holiday, which usually is the start of the holiday shopping season and Black Friday weekend.

“We know holiday shopping will be different this year, and we will be managing sales events differently,” Furner wrote. ”Our best ideas come from our associates, and this year we have decided to close our stores on Thanksgiving Day – November 26.”

Walmart stores haven’t closed on Thanksgiving since the late 1980s, the company told USA TODAY. Christmas is the only day each year most Walmart locations close.

Read the full report here.

New cases

• Carlos Rosas, the friendly manager of popular fish shack Calumet Fisheries, has died of the coronavirus. He was 41.
• Illinois’ coronavirus testing positivity rate crept upward once more with the latest batch of 955 confirmed cases statewide, officials said Tuesday. The new cases were detected among 29,745 test results, raising the state’s rolling positivity rate over the last week to 3.1%, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Analysis & Commentary

8:03 a.m. It’s good to have baseball back, but it’s hard to view it as an escape in these tumultuous times

In case you haven’t noticed, these are crazy times.

And I must apologize, but as a veteran sportswriter, I was just plain bored watching on TV the two Cubs-White Sox exhibition games from empty Wrigley Field and Guaranteed Rate Field.

Do you know how packed those places would have been for those tuneups Sunday and Monday? Oh, man, it would have been a carnival at each place. Instead, it was like tuning in to a horticulture Zoom meeting outdoors.

Little League games, sandlot games, even old-man, slow-pitch softball games have more color, more drama, more noise than these things. Luis Robert, as thrilling a rookie as we’ve had in town for years, fans in his first at-bat, rips a screaming double later, and what do we hear?

Nothing.

The political, social, entertainment, education, health, sports and civil-rights elements of our world have gone haywire and coalesced into a big ball of confusion.

Maybe, the thought occurs to all of us at increasing moments of anxiety and distress, we’ll have to live like this.

Staying away from other humans? Wearing masks? Never assembling in joyful crowds? Tearing down everything that once seemed stable and secure? Dear God.

Tell me this: What in your life is stable? What is the way it was in 2019?

Read the full column from Rick Telander here.