Illinois Meeting All 5 of its Goals Ahead of Friday’s Phase 3 Re-Opening:  Governor Pritzker announced today at his daily press briefing that the state has met all five metrics from the guidelines for reopening issued by the White House and the CDC.  These metrics are:

• decreasing number of positive tests per 100,000 people
• decreasing percentage of positive tests
• increasing number of tests per 100,000 people per day
• increasing the availability of ICU beds
• decreasing number of hospital visits for “flu-like illness”

These metrics are also included in the Governor’s plan for re-opening for which Phase 3 starts this Friday. 

Driver Facilities Set to Re-Open Next Week, Other Transportation Related News:  Attached to this Update is information and guidance for how the Secretary of State’s Office plans to re-open driver facilities next week. The plan is to have the first two months focused on serving ONLY new drivers, customers with expired driver’s licenses/ID cards and vehicle transactions. Currently there are more than 700,000 expired driver’s licenses/ID cards and 1.9 million expired vehicle registrations.  Even further, all Secretary of State departments and offices will be open for business on June 1.    

In addition, as many of you know, the Illinois Department of Transportation in April authorized trucks to be up to 90,000 lbs. (from the normal 80,000 lbs.) on 5 axles or 12% over legal loads on less axles for trucks involved in relief/resupply efforts for the COVID-19 pandemic.  This increased weight allowance is set to expire this Friday, May 29.  CICI will alert the membership should this increased weight allowance expire or become extended.

As mentioned here before, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has extended and updated its hours of service (HOS) rule until June 14. 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. 

Update on COVID-19 Cases, Recovery Rate at 92%: This afternoon, the Illinois Dept. of Public Health (IDPH) is reporting a total of 5,083 deaths, an increase of 160 since yesterday. While this seems like a high casualty number from just the last 24 hours, it’s due to delayed reporting because of the Memorial Day Weekend.  There are currently 114,306 positive cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, an increase of 1,111 from yesterday. In total, 803,973 people have now been tested in Illinois for the virus, an increase of 17,179 since yesterday.

The statewide positivity rate for the last 24 hours is at 6.4%, down over 2% since yesterday, and our statewide 7-day rolling positivity rate is at 8.6%.  Again, IDPH’s webpage tracks positivity and hospitalization rates for the state’s four regions.

In addition, Governor Pritzker mentioned that IDPH is indicating a 92% recovery rate for all positive cases in the state, regardless if the cases were hospital patients or simply recovered at home.

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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