To:

Chemical Industry Council of Illinois (CICI) Members

From:

Mark Biel, Chief Executive Officer
[email protected] or 217/522-5805 

Re:

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update – Clay County Judge Rules Against Pritzker’s “Stay at Home” Order; Illinois Small Business Loan Fund to Double; Update on COVID-19 Cases; Hospitalization Rates


Clay County Judge Rules Against Pritzker’s “Stay at Home” Order:
Late last week,a lawsuit was filed in Clay County by State Rep. Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) against Governor Pritzker for extending the state's “stay-at-home” order.  The suit claims that the Governor is exceeding his authority and is violating the civil rights of the state's residents.

This afternoon a Clay County Circuit Judge ruled in favor of the suit and issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the extension of the governor’s “stay-at-home” order set to take effect this Friday and run through May 30. At this time, the language of this TRO is not yet available. 

Governor Pritzker at his daily news briefing vowed to immediately appeal this decision through the Illinois Attorney General’s office.  CICI will keep you abreast of this situation and report back with any further developments. 

Illinois Small Business Loan Fund to Double: Illinois State Treasurer Mike Frerichs today announced that his office is doubling to $500 million the amount of loans available for small businesses hurting from the coronavirus outbreak.

The funding comes from the treasurer’s $13 billion investment portfolio and is channeled through local banks, credit unions and other lending institutions if they agree to lend the money at below-market rates. More information on this funding is available at the State Treasurer's office.

In addition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also has pertinent information on additional economic assistance through last week’s new stimulus package in addition to other assistance already in place.

Update on COVID-19 Cases:The Illinois Dept. of Public Health (IDPH) is now reporting a total of 1,983 deaths over the weekend, an increase of 50 deaths since yesterday. There are currently 45,883 positive cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, an increase of 1,980 from yesterday. In total, 227,628 people have now been tested in Illinois for the virus, which is an increase of 12,676 since yesterday.  The percentage of positive cases in the last 24 hours as compared to increased testing is at 15.6%, lower than it has been in quite some time.  Remember: the state needs to witness 14 straight days of decline in the number of positive cases as compared to testing in order to begin re-opening the economy and other activities.        

You can check where these cases are occurring at the State of Illinois COVID-19 website which also contains more information on this outbreak. Also, IDPH has a case breakdown of the number of positive cases in Chicago and each county relative to the number of fatalities.  The IDPH website also now includes a breakdown of the cases under each zip code in the state. In addition, Western Illinois University has an put together this Map of COVID-19 Cases in Illinois & Surrounding States which gives you picture of where COVID-19 cases are occurring in relation to areas surrounding Illinois. 

Worldometer also has a site with pertinent statistics on a state by state breakdown and comparison. Also, the City of Chicago has a good categorization of the cases within the city.

Hospitalization Rates: Governor Pritzker today talked about the state’s hospitalization rates for COVID-19 positive cases. Of the 45,883 positive cases, 4,672, or 10.1%, are currently requiring some sort of hospital care.  Of the state’s 3,600 ICU beds, 1,224, or 34%, are currently in use by these patients. And of the 4,672 cases in the hospital, 763 are on ventilators, which is 23% of the state’s total ventilator inventory.

 

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