Cook County COVID-19 response plan focuses on communities ‘hit the hardest’ to ensure ‘recovery will encompass everyone’

A week after Gov. J.B. Pritzker presented a blueprint for reopening the state, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Thursday unveiled her plans for what the county’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic will look like.

The “Cook County COVID-19 Response Plan: From Rapid Response to Equitable Recovery,” includes a Council on Digital Equity, which will oversee the county’s efforts to help bridge the digital divide for more than a quarter of county residents who lack high-speed internet or enough bandwidth to manage Zoom classes or handle other online tasks, Preckwinkle said in a livestreamed appearance before the City Club of Chicago.

The county is also launching a new open-learning platform in collaboration with the University of Chicago’s Office of Civic Engagement to provide six weeks of lectures for residents.

The county is moving ahead with its fair transit project, despite the pandemic causing transit ridership to fall.

That project, which was unveiled last year, continues the work of the county’s Department of Transportation and Highways with regional partners Metra, Pace and the CTA to bring “affordable, accessible transit” to more riders on the South Side of Chicago and in the south and southwest suburbs.

The CTA has not agreed yet to participate, but the county is in negotiations with Metra and hopes for a fall rollout.

The plan also includes a community advisory council composed of community leaders and advocates who are being recruited from across the county. They are to provide feedback from their communities on the effectiveness of the county’s plan and on existing gaps in services and explore potential areas for partnership with the county, the board president said. She hopes the council can begin meeting near the end of the month.

Cook County surpassed Queens, N.Y., as the county with most COVID-19 cases in the U.S. Thursday. Cook County, which has a population of 5.1 million, added 2,051 cases in the last 24 hours compared to 336 for the New York county, which has 2.25 million people.

Preckwinkle said the focus of the plan is on communities because the county has a “moral obligation to focus on equity as well” in its recovery efforts, which “must include everyone,” especially black and brown communities that have been “hit the hardest.”

“These initiatives address the root causes of inequity, including our community partners and residents and ensure that when Cook County recovers from this crisis, we will recover together,” Preckwinkle said. “Our recovery will encompass everyone, not just those who have the access to the most resources.”

The county’s response to the virus could change over the next two years as researchers work on developing a vaccine. Bill Barnes, the head of the county’s Emergency Management and Regional Security department, said the pandemic’s effect will “ebb and flow.”

“This is not a typical disaster where, say, a tornado strikes, and response is going in rescuing people, cleaning up debris and then transitioning to a clean recovery period where it’s rebuilding and restoring services,” Barnes said. “Here, we anticipate several waves of infections which are going to mean that we’re going to have to ramp up and down our recovery to respond to the situation on the ground. Simultaneously, there are going to be recovery actions because we can’t wait to begin the recovery actions until this is over, two years from now.”

Dr. Kiran Joshi, a co-director of the county’s Department of Public Health, said as cases decrease the county will step up its contact tracing efforts, which the county is planning for now.