Another 1,772 new coronavirus cases — the highest single day tally since May, when the virus hit its deadly peak — were announced today. That brings Illinois total case number to 176,896. Its tally of coronavirus deaths is 7,478.
Here’s what else happened as Chicago and the state continued the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
News
8:55 p.m. Coronavirus-stricken woman gets lung transplants after mother travels to Chicago to say ‘goodbye’
Mayra Ramirez described her worst moment — when she was close to death and how her mother had been told to catch the first flight to Chicago to come say goodbye.
As Ramirez spoke Thursday, her mother sat a few feet away, silent, most of her face and her outward emotions hidden behind a surgical mask.
“What hurts the most is knowing everything my family went through during the time I was intubated,” said Ramirez softly, as she appeared with the team of Northwestern Memorial Hospital doctors who ensured her mother never had to utter that awful word, “Goodbye.”
Ramirez, 28, of Chicago, and Brian Kuhns, a 62-year-old mechanic from Lake Zurich were both Northwestern patients who made history: They were the first in the nation to receive double-lung transplants after the coronavirus destroyed those organs.
Ramirez, a paralegal who moved to the city from North Carolina six years ago, told reporters that she’d been careful when the pandemic swept through. She stayed home mostly, but still got sick. In April, she called her doctor after she lost her sense of taste and smell — and felt excessively tired. When she had fainting spells later that same month, she came to Northwestern’s emergency room.
“I was asked who would be making my medical decisions for me,” Ramirez explained. Her mother, she said. A few minutes later, she was being hooked up to a ventilator. The next few weeks were a blur with Ramirez often unable to distinguish reality from her frequent nightmares.
Get the full story from reporter Stefano Esposito here.
7:04 p.m. Pritzker: ‘Now is the moment to wear your mask properly’
Gov. J.B. Pritzker warned Illinois is at “a danger point” in the battle against COVID-19, as public health officials on Thursday announced another 1,772 new coronavirus cases — the highest single day tally since May, when the virus hit its deadly peak.
The rise is part of a disturbing trend that’s seen July’s daily case average shoot up to more than 1,100, compared to 764 per day last month. In the last nine days alone, more than 13,000 new cases have been reported — more than half the total for all of last month.
Speaking in Peoria, an area Pritzker has put on his warning list, the governor suggested residents are at a crossroads.
“We’re at a danger point everybody. Pay attention,” he said. “Now is the moment to wear your mask properly.”
The state’s positivity rate — which experts say indicates how rapidly the virus is spreading through a region — was 2.7% on June 26, when most businesses, restaurants and bars were allowed to resume limited operations under the fourth phase of Pritzker’s reopening plan.
Read the full report from Mitch Dudek here.
4:43 p.m. VMAs introduce 2 new quarantine categories
The VMAs, to air live on Aug. 30 from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, introduces two new categories reflecting the current pandemic times: best music video from home and best quarantine performance.
Grande and Justin Bieber’s No. 1 hit “Stuck with U” will compete for best music video from home along with Drake’s “Toosie Slide,” John Legend’s “Bigger Love,” 5 Seconds of Summer’s “Wildflower,” blink-182’s “Happy Days” and twenty one pilots’ “Level of Concern,” which topped the Billboard rock songs chart for seven weeks and features the lyrics, “Will you be my little quarantine?”
R&B duo Chloe x Halle, who have successfully promoted their new album during the pandemic with impressive live performances mostly put on in their tennis court and outside their new home, are nominated for best quarantine performance for “Do It” from MTV’s virtual prom “Prom-athon.” Other nominees include Gaga’s “Smile” from the TV special “One World: Together At Home”;Legend’s “#togetherathome” concert; DJ D-Nice’s “Club MTV presents #DanceTogether”; CNCO’s “MTV Unplugged At Home”; and Post Malone’s tribute to Nirvana.
3:04 p.m. Herman Cain dies at 74 after weeks-long battle with COVID-19
Herman Cain, former Republican presidential candidate and former CEO of a major pizza chain who went on to become an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, has died of complications from the coronavirus. He was 74.
A post on Cain’s Twitter account on Thursday announced the death. Cain had been ill with the virus for several weeks. It’s not clear when or where he was infected, but he was hospitalized less than two weeks after attending Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June. Cain had been co-chair of Black Voices for Trump.
“We knew when he was first hospitalized with COVID-19 that this was going to be a rough fight,” read an article posted on the Twitter account. “He had trouble breathing and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. We all prayed that the initial meds they gave him would get his breathing back to normal, but it became clear pretty quickly that he was in for a battle.”
11:56 a.m. Will mask mandates be the end of lipstick?
“Lipstick is the best cosmetic there is,” Joan Collins once observed, shrewdly. Alas, not so much anymore — not now, when face masks are covering the lower half of our faces.
It could mean the end of lipstick as we know it. And what would we do without it?
For millennia, lip cosmetics have been one of the ways for women and men to express themselves, to lift their spirits, to make their face stand out in the crowd.
Will pandemic face masks wipe away the simple joys of lipstick?
Perish the thought, say lipstick lovers and cosmetic makers, nervously eyeing sales figures expected to fall this year, maybe as much as 11% according to one market prediction.
Since the pandemic (and mask-wearing) started, there’s been a dramatic drop in use of lipstick, according to multiple surveys by Poshly, a marketing research firm that works with cosmetic companies, says CEO Doreen Bloch.
9:56 a.m. Private jet usage soaring for Chicago charter companies amid pandemic
With two young children, Meghan Leckey couldn’t fathom boarding a commercial airplane for her regular trips between homes in Chicago and South Florida during the coronavirus pandemic. Waiting in lines, wearing a mask, and constantly wiping down surfaces so her family can stay safe just didn’t seem feasible for the 37-year-old restaurant owner.
So four weeks ago, Leckey and her family, who ordinarily would fly first class, bought a private jet.
Leckey’s move to purchase a private jet last month, though still a luxury only accessible to the ultra-rich, is indicative of a larger trend starting to appear in the travel industry. Like Leckey, some people who once flew in business or first class are making the switch to chartering a private jet, and those who once chartered planes are taking the major step of purchasing their own plane to avoid crowded airports altogether as the coronavirus pandemic marches on.
Mark Ahasic, president of Ahasic Aviation Advisors, said multiple factors are driving the sudden growth he’s seen in the industry. Not only can worried flyers avoid the discomfort in being sardined in a commercial airliner, flying in private planes lets them avoid airport terminals, lines and crowds, which have morphed from an annoyance to a perceived health risk for many.
Read the full story from Alice Bazerghi here.
8:08 a.m. Pritzker warns public, pols on COVID-19 precautions: ‘If things don’t change, a reversal is where we’re headed’
A month after Illinois entered its latest phase of reopening, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday warned that another round of closures could be on tap if residents don’t take health precautions more seriously to stem the state’s steady rise in coronavirus cases.
“We are far, far from out of the woods,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said during a Loop news conference.
“We’ve made progress in Illinois, but we’ve also seen that it can be fleeting. And right now, things are not heading in the right direction. I want to remind everyone that it doesn’t take long at all for a trajectory of success to turn into rising hospitalizations and deaths.
“And if things don’t change, a reversal is where we’re headed,” Pritzker said.
The Democratic governor offered his grim prognosis as the Illinois Department of Public Health announced the latest 1,393 cases of COVID-19 confirmed among 38,187 tests. That kept the state’s testing positivity rate over the last week at 3.8%, but raised July’s daily average to more than 1,100 new cases reported per day, compared to 764 per day last month.
Reporter Mitch Arementrout has the full story.
New cases
- Public health officials on Thursday announced another 1,772 new coronavirus cases in Illinois — the highest single day tally since May, when the virus hit its deadly peak.
- Herman Cain, former Republican presidential candidate and former CEO of a major pizza chain who went on to become an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, has died at age 74 of complications from the coronavirus.
Analysis & Commentary
8:21 p.m. Toilet troubles worsened by COVID crisis
Tim Pyle, executive director of the American Restroom Association, recently got an urgent email from Wichita alerting him that the bathroom at the bus station downtown was closed to the public; could the ARA help?
While the Baltimore-based group is not intended to address individual shuttered toilets across this great land, Pyle responded sympathetically.
“Municipalities and governments have dropped the ball in the past 20 years, and have abdicated their responsibilities to store owners, gas stations, and eateries,” he wrote. “Now that COVID has hit, it is more important than ever for ‘public’ facilities to do their part and keep them open.”
Which is separate from the issue of whether people should even go into public restrooms that are open. Public bathrooms are perfect virus spreaders. Strangers gather in the smallest space possible. They perform functions that are then rendered into whirling vortexes of airborne contamination, thanks to flushing toilets, and blasted through the room by hand dyers.
Two related problems then: keeping bathrooms open, and improving their safety.
Read Neil Steinberg’s full column here.
8:33 a.m. Fallout from Trump canceling Jacksonville convention events: GOP mega-donor perks vanish
Before the COVID-19 surge in Florida forced President Donald Trump to scratch his in-person presidential convention in Jacksonville, the top perk package for high-end Republican donors — who would stay at swank resorts and get VIP access to Trump cabinet members — was priced at $1,161,200 per couple.
The Democrats, taking the pandemic threat more seriously earlier, told people not to come to Milwaukee at the end of June. The Democratic perk package consists of all-virtual events and tops out with donors asked to give $250,000 or to raise at least $500,000.
The Chicago Sun-Times obtained the perk packages for the GOP and Democratic conventions, August events vastly retooled because of the pandemic.
Pre-COVID-19, both parties used conventions to lure or reward mega-donors, who would have concierge fundraisers assigned to them to make sure they would have access to the best hotels, parties, briefings and floor credentials.
