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To:
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Chemical Industry Council of Illinois (CICI) Members
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From:
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Mark Biel, Chief Executive Officer
[email protected] or 217/522-5805
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Re:
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update – Pritzker Blasts TRO Aimed at new “Stay at Home” Order; Free Cloth Face Masks Still Available; Governor Pritzker’s New “Stay at Home” Executive Order; Update on COVID-19 Cases; Recovery Rate Update
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Pritzker Blasts TRO Aimed at New “Stay at Home” Order: At his daily press conference today, Governor Pritzker began by blasting yesterday’s 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. In referring to this legal action as a cheap, political stunt that only applies to the State Representative who filed the action, he said that the Attorney General’s office has filed a note indicating that they do plan to file an appeal to the 5th Appellate Court in Mt. Vernon and perhaps seek a stay of this TRO. The 5th Appellate District has a 5-2 Republican majority on the bench. Should this appeal fail, it will go to the Illinois Supreme Court.
At this point, another State Representative also plans to file a similar request for a TRO against the new “Stay at Home” order. The governor fears that this action may have a snowball effect if other people do the same or lend their name to the current suits. The Governor remarked, however, that he is confident state statute allows the use of these extraordinary emergency powers and that the courts will eventually throw out any TRO’s against these orders. CICI will keep you updated as developments warrant.
Free Cloth Face Masks Still Available: Several days ago, CICI alerted the membership that free cloth face masks were being made available to companies through a program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The administration has reached out to trade associations like SOCMA which represent sectors identified by the Department of Homeland Security as critical infrastructure to collect information and streamline this process. Even though the applications to receive these masks were supposed to end by April 23, FEMA has announced that they are still available. You can use this sign up form to submit an application.
Governor Pritzker’s New “Stay at Home” Executive Order: CICI sent this out earlier today but wanted to remind the membership as to what will be entailed in his new Executive Oder that should take effect Friday. The current Executive Order, which has already been extended once, is due to expire April 30. CICI has seen an early, if only preliminary, edition of Governor Pritzker’s extended "Stay at Home" Order. The new language for the order is underlined and in bold.
Update on COVID-19 Cases:The Illinois Dept. of Public Health (IDPH) is now reporting a total of 2,125 deaths, an increase of 144 deaths since yesterday. There are currently 48,102 positive cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, an increase of 2,219 from yesterday. In total, 242,189 people have now been tested in Illinois for the virus, which is an increase of 14,561 since yesterday. The percentage of positive cases in the last 24 hours as compared to increased testing is at 15.2%, which is a decrease of 0.4% from yesterday, which is the lowest it’s been for a while.
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.
Recovery Rate Update: Today, IDPH mentioned that of the surveyed individuals with COVID-19 that 49% of the positive cases from less than 2 weeks ago no longer have symptoms and have fully recovered. And for those people who have had a positive case from 2-4 weeks ago, 61% of those have fully recovered. And for those positive cases from more than 4 weeks ago, 74% have made a full recovery.
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