Pritzker warns of case surge in southern Illinois.
Gov. Pritzker says coronavirus surge in southern Illinois ‘worse than in Chicago’
Some southern Illinois politicians have spent months hammering Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 measures for bringing the downstate economy to a halt to solve what they have called a Chicago-area problem.
Now, southern Illinois is the problem, the Democratic governor said Tuesday.
“I’m here today because the COVID-19 pandemic, which once seemed tame in Carbondale and throughout the entire region, is surging here,” Pritzker said at Southern Illinois University. “It’s worse than in Chicago.
“And I’ll be frank, if we don’t see some change here, the virus will cause some businesses to close and an increasing percentage of people to get sick, and some will even die.”
Pritzker pointed to coronavirus testing positivity rates of 7.3% and 7.4% over the last week in the Metro East and southern Illinois regions, including an 8% rate in Jackson County.
In Chicago, the seven-day positivity rate was at 4.9%, and 5.8% in suburban Cook County.
The governor’s office has said it will intervene with various “mitigation” efforts including business shutdowns if a full region passes that 8% threshold.
“These are the highest in the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said of southern Illinois. “Unfortunately, right now the virus is winning in Jackson County.”
Jackson was one of 11 counties spanning the state that were deemed to be at “warning level” last week by the Illinois Department of Public Health.
While Illinois cases have trended steadily upward over the last month, those counties were singled out for outbreaks traced to large gatherings of young people and lax enforcement of masking and social distancing guidelines. Pritzker said he was “encouraged” to see local leaders stepping up restrictions, including a masking ordinance passed by the Carbondale City Council and increased enforcement at bars and restaurants in Jackson County.
“We also need all of our residents to take this seriously, and to protect themselves, no matter how young and invincible you might think you are, the largest increase in cases is occurring among young people in their 20s and below,” Pritzker said. “This virus is dangerous no matter how young you are because of the long term damage it can cause you.”
Restaurant owners fighting for survival in Chicago’s once-thriving Fulton Market district urged Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday to restore the 10-person-per-table maximum reduced to six to stop maskless young people from flocking to bars.
Last month, Lightfoot made good on a threat to roll back restrictions if young people didn’t stop their risky behavior.
She ordered taverns, breweries and other establishments without a retail food license to stop serving customers indoors and reduced the maximum party size and table occupancy at restaurants, bars, taverns and breweries from 10 people to six.
For restaurants limited to carryout only during the stay-at-home shutdown triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, it was unfair punishment and yet another in a string of devastating blows.
“It’s a classification of a private event versus just being a small gathering. It’s a completely different tier from our private event spaces being able to be sold,” said Phil Walters, owner of Formento’s, 925 W. Randolph St.
“We do have lots of inventory that are large tables that can no longer be used now. It just doesn’t make sense for guests when they come in with five to six guests to be put at a giant table.”
Walters said lumping restaurants into the same category as bars threatens to allow “bad players to bring down an entire industry . . . that is already heavily impaired.”
That’s why he’s pleading with Lightfoot to restore restaurants to the 10-per-table limit.
“We’re starting to go back in the [wrong] direction in regards to peoples’ confidence about going out and being part of the life of Chicago,” Walters told the Sun-Times.
“I’ve purchased thousands of dollars of PPE. I’ve purchased thousands of dollars of sanitizer. We have brought in noncontact thermometers for all sections. We have scrapped all of our menus, which were a complete cost of paper products . . . . Most people get sick at home because they put raw chicken on the same cutting board that they prepare salad. We’ve observed this thing to the point where we’re almost a hospital.”
Ron Cain, owner of Kuma’s Korner at 852 W. Fulton Market, said the six-person-per-table limit has forced him to turn away customers he cannot afford to lose at a time when sales are down “more than 50%.”
“We have had families come in with more than six people, but less than 10. And we’re unable to seat them together . . . . At this point, every sale matters,” Cain told the Sun-Times.
“I don’t think it’s intentional. We’re just getting lumped into that category [with bars] and I don’t think it’s proper. I’ve seen bars where people are just standing on top of each other and not [wearing masks] or social distancing, whereas in restaurants, we are.”
Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady slammed the door on restoring restaurants to the 10-person-per-table limit.
“Not a chance. Not right now. Not as numbers are on the way up,” Arwady said.
“When you are at a restaurant indoors, by definition pretty much, the people at your table have just come into your bubble because you have to take your mask off. People are sitting close. They’re in a social setting, and we have seen examples of spread.”
The average number of cases per day in Chicago is 273 and rising. Only when it drops below 200 will the city think about raising the per-table limit, Arwady said.
“When things are under control, that’s the setting when you can loosen restrictions. But, in the meantime, that six-person requirement for indoor dining is appropriate and will remain in place,” the commissioner said.
Although Lightfoot and Arwady call the shots on public health orders, a letter from the Fulton Market restaurant owners was sent to all 50 aldermen as well as the mayor.
DETROIT — Jim Farley will lead Ford Motor Co. into the future as the global auto industry faces a new era of autonomous and electric vehicles.
The company named Farley, 58, as its new CEO effective Oct. 1, replacing Jim Hackett, who will retire after three years at the helm. Farley, who has been with Ford for more than a decade, had been chief operating officer since February and clearly was being groomed for the top position.
He faces tough challenges as the industry emerges from the coronavirus pandemic. Ford is losing money and is transitioning from an aging model lineup to new vehicles, including those powered by electricity.
Executive Chairman Bill Ford, the great-grandson of founder Henry Ford, said the board briefly discussed looking outside for a CEO but was inspired by Farley’s leadership. “We talked about it and we did throw some names around,” he said on a conference call Tuesday. “Every time we did that, we always felt that Jim Farley rose to the top.”
Farley was hired away from Toyota by then-CEO Alan Mulally in 2007 to run Ford’s marketing operations. In a nod to the changing auto industry, Farley left out traditional rivals General Motors and Fiat Chrysler when naming Ford’s competitors. Instead, he identified them as retail giant Amazon, Chinese search engine Baidu, electric car maker Tesla, iPhone maker Apple, and Japanese automaker Toyota.
Hackett, 65, took over for the ousted Mark Fields in May of 2017. He flattened the organization so it could move faster. But his often lengthy directives confused employees who weren’t clear on where the company was headed.
Why isn’t Illinois charging ahead in reforming state policies with respect to all forms of energy — from fossil fuels to nuclear to solar to wind?
There could be no more perfect time.
With last month’s slap-down of ComEd by the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago, the Illinois Legislature and Gov. J.B. Pritzker have been presented with the state’s best chance in decades to produce a comprehensive clean energy policy that has not been unduly shaped by the politically powerful utility companies.
The Legislature and Pritzker should enact new rules that move the state toward 100% carbonfree electricity by 2030 and 100% renewable energy by 2050, which could create jobs without spending taxpayer money and attract billions of dollars of private investment. Those targets and possibilities are included in a draft Clean Energy Jobs Act bill, a promising framework for a good new law.
In short, instead of allowing utility companies to drive energy policy in Illinois, the discussion in Springfield can and should be led by a clear goal, set to an ambitious timetable, of providing far more climate-friendly, efficient and cost-effective energy to Illinois ratepayers.
Why the pause?
Instead, we are told by legislators and environmental advocates, the Pritzker administration last month quietly and without explanation indefinitely “paused” the efforts of legislative working groups that were hammering out final details of the bill. As it happens, Gov. Pritzker has long supported clean energy, and we urge him to come around now.
At stake are the growing use of renewable energy, greater protections for ratepayers, new jobs, assistance to displaced fossil-fuelplant workers and environmental conservation.
Illinois lawmakers had a chance to pass energy legislation last summer but put off a vote until spring, likely because they couldn’t predict in what direction the federal investigation into ComEd might go. Nobody wanted to sign on to a bill that might later be tainted by a scandal involving high-powered lobbyists.
Then this spring, COVID-19 swept in, forcing the Legislature to shorten its usual session, leaving little time for consideration of a complex energy bill.
And now, just as working groups of legislators were having what we’re told were “fruitful conversations,” we fear the bill is being put on the back burner again. This, at a time when Illinois, like the whole country, should be making an all-out effort to combat climate change.
ComEd off the field
Last month, ComEd admitted to steering jobs, contracts and payments to friends and allies of House Speaker Michael J. Madigan, D-Chicago, in an effort to gain more favorable treatment. Madigan himself has not been charged with wrongdoing, and the U.S. attorney’s office has presented no evidence that the speaker pulled any strings.
But the scandal has pushed ComEd’s vaunted Springfield lobbying operation to the sidelines, meaning lawmakers won’t be feeling the usual intense pressure tactics as they attempt to draw up and vote on a progressive new energy bill.
So what’s the hold-up?
The Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition is expected to announce Wednesday that the draft Clean Energy Jobs Act has been revised to include “utility accountability rules,” such as ending formula rates, which have allowed companies like ComEd to raise prices without going before the Illinois Commerce Commission. Such rules would seem essential given that many of the reforms to which ComEd has agreed as part of the deferred prosecution agreement involve self-policing.
Nuclear energy still in the mix
Some lawmakers might still be reluctant to take action on the proposed energy bill because, in the end, it still will carve out a healthy role for Exelon, the owner of ComEd. Exelon operates all the nuclear power plants in Illinois, and it will be necessary for those plants to continue generating electricity until the state can ramp up its use of renewable energy from 8% to 100%.
As part of the last major Illinois energy bill, the 2016 Future Energy Jobs Act, Exelon secured valuable tax credits in exchange for not closing nuclear power plants, and Exelon has said it might need that help again.
Nuclear energy is environmentally objectionable in its own obvious way, but its continued use during a period of transition is no argument for voting against the Clean Energy Jobs Act. Home electricity bills are poised to shoot up, and Illinois is at risk of falling behind other states in attracting billions of dollars in renewable energy investment.
The Illinois Legislature should get on this during its November veto session, pandemic or no pandemic.