Pritzker Announces New Plan to Allow Limited Activities: At Governor Pritzker’s daily press conference, he announced a new plan to begin May 29 to allow limited outdoor seating in restaurants and bars per Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) guidance, which will be forthcoming.  Also allowed to return is golfing in foursomes and with carts limited to households, boating and camping with more than 2 people but no more than 10.  Tennis, all state parks and their concessions, retail shops, personal care facilities like nail salons, barbershops, and gyms will also be allowed to reopen but under limited capacity and impending IDPH guidelines.  CICI will keep you abreast when these public health guidelines become available.    

IDPH Pulls Emergency Rules on Misdemeanor Non-Compliance:  As you may know, IDPH filed an emergency rule last Friday providing for a Class A misdemeanor violation for not complying with the state’s “Stay at Home” order.  This would largely apply to restaurants that allow dine-in service, nonessential retailers beyond curbside sales, and salons and gyms that reopen. A misdemeanor is punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.

However, at this morning’s Joint Commission on Administrative Rules (JCAR) hearing, which was to vote on the emergency rule, IDPH officials testified during the hearing that they would be repealing the emergency rule. The governor’s office is expected to revisit this issue through legislation and may modify other rules to go along with his plan to phase in reopening sectors of the economy.

FMSCA Extends & Updates Hours of Service Rules:  The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has extended and updated its hours of service (HOS) rule. 

The final rule on hours of service offers four key revisions to the existing HOS rules:

• The agency will increase safety and flexibility for the 30-minute break rule by requiring a break after 8 hours of consecutive driving and allowing the break to be satisfied by a driver using on-duty, not driving status, rather than off-duty status.

• The agency will modify the sleeper-berth exception to allow drivers to split their required 10 hours off duty into two periods: an 8/2 split, or a 7/3 split—with neither period counting against the driver’s 14‑hour driving window.

• The agency will modify the adverse driving conditions exception by extending by two hours the maximum window during which driving is permitted.

• The agency will change the short-haul exception available to certain commercial drivers by lengthening the drivers’ maximum on‑duty period from 12 to 14 hours and extending the distance limit within which the driver may operate from 100 air miles to 150 air miles.

The latest information, declarations, and resources on FMCSA’s response to the COVID-19 are also available at https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/COVID-19.  

National Governor’s Association’s State-By-State Summary of Public Health Criteria & State Actions in Reopening Plans: Yesterday, the National Governor’s Association (NGA)announced anevolving, state-by-state summary and analysis of reopening plans with public health criteria.  The summary will be updated every Wednesday and Friday as governors issue new orders and plans.

The NGA has also summarized actions taken by the states to reopen certain business sectors previously restricted, deemed nonessential and/or required to close. Please note this list is not exhaustive of statewide actions. This list addresses statewide guidance for businesses and does not address county or municipal guidance. State reopening actions will continue to be tracked and updated within this chart.

New Illinois Supreme Court Order & Guidelines for Resuming Court Operations:  Today, the Illinois Supreme Court modified issued an order, to be effective June 1, 2020, so that eachCircuit may return to hearing court matters, whether in person or remotely, according to schedule to be adopted for each county by the chief judge in each Circuit. The circuit courts shall continue, to the extent possible, to allow for appropriate social distancing and attempt to reduce the number of persons appearing personally for court appearances.  The Illinois Supreme Court has also issued guidance to be followed in accordance with the new order.

Update on COVID-19 Cases: The Illinois Dept. of Public Health (IDPH) is now reporting a total of 4,525 deaths, an increase of 147 since yesterday. There are currently 100,418 positive cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, an increase of 2,388 cases from yesterday. In total, 642,713 people have now been tested in Illinois for the virus, an increase of 18,443 from yesterday. Consistently - almost 90% of all positive COVID-19 cases and deaths have been located in the Chicagoland area.

Today’s statewide positivity rate is at 11.3% and our statewide 7-day rolling positivity rate is at 14%.  Again, IDPH’s webpage tracks positivity and hospitalization rates for the state’s four regions.

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. 

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