Covid in Illinois updates in the Chicago area

Illinois Public Health officials reported 1,893 newly confirmed cases of covid and 6 additional deaths. That brings Illinois’ total to 220,178 cases and 7,880 fatalities. If Illinois does not bring its steadily rising covid numbers down quickly, it is among the areas of the country facing a perfect storm of risk factors for transmitting the highly contagious disease.

20 counties are now considered at a warning level for covid, and that cases of the virus connected to schools are beginning to be reported. Meanwhile, the Illinois Department of Public Health acknowledged that the agency did not investigate nursing home complaints of neglect and abuse for nearly 3½ months during the covid pandemic. The announcement came a month after the the agency fire Illinois’ top nursing home regulator without explanation and disciplined another.

The combination of some schools returning to in-person instruction, Labor Day travel, and cooler fall weather would all be piled on top of a steady uptick in Illinois’ statewide test positivity rate. If you have that big reservoir of circulating cases and you get some of those colder days that start to come, then you are also returning kids to universities and schools. And the mixing goes up in the community, it is just a perfect storm, you set yourself off on the wrong foot.

Illinois has endured a late summer uptick in a number of metrics, with daily case counts topping 2,000 several times in August 2020.

The statewide seven-day average test positivity rate stood at 4.3%. That uptick could be particularly poorly timed when the wave of the pandemic in the United States will shift back north. President Donald Trump announced emergency authorization to treat covid patients with convalescent plasma, a move he called a breakthrough. One of Trump’s top health officials called the breakthrough promising and other health experts said it needs more study before it is celebrated.

The announcement came after White House officials complained there were politically motivated delays by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in approving a vaccine and therapeutics for covid that has upended Trump’s reelection chances. On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Trump put himself at the center of the FDA’s announcement of the authorization at a news conference. The authorization makes it easier for some patients to obtain the treatment but is not the same as full FDA approval.

The blood plasma, taken from patients who have recovered from covid and rich in antibodies, may provide benefits to those battling the disease. But the evidence so far has not been conclusive about whether it works, when to administer it, and what dose is needed. Covid convalescent plasma should not be considered a new standard of care for the treatment of patients with the virus.

Additional data will be forthcoming from other analyses and ongoing, well-controlled clinical trials.

But Trump had made clear to aides that he was eager to showcase good news in the battle against covid, and the timing allowed him to head into his convention with momentum. Trump and his aides billed it as a major development and used the White House briefing room to make the announcement. With a smaller staff, half the capacity and new safety measures, Gurnee’s Great Wolf Lodge is set to reopen, allowing families into its water park and adventure area for the first time in five months after covid forced it to close.

With all of the guidance that the government and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has given, Great Wolf Lodge is able to open safely to its guests. In addition to the advice from the CDC, Great Wolf Lodge can learn from the experience of sister properties and observations of other facilities in the region. Nearby Six Flags Hurricane Harbor, an outdoor water park, opened with thermal imaging scans and masks required outside of the pools and waterslides.

The Six Flags Great America theme park remains closed. In Wisconsin Dells, where Great Wolf has another location, the well-known Noah’s Ark Waterpark, which is outdoors, closed after two employees tested positive for covid. Noah’s Ark will not reopen until 2021. Great Wolf Lodge Illinois in Gurnee will be limited to about 50% of its capacity, with only 208 rooms in use at the 414-room property.

Trump announced that he would sidestep a congressional stalemate to deliver $400 in extra weekly benefits to tens of millions of unemployed Americans, a short-term fix meant to replace the $600-a-week emergency federal supplement that expired.

Since then, as more details of the Lost Wages Assistance have emerged, so have problems with finding the funding and getting it to the hands of those who need it. What is now clear is that the federal supplement is $300 a week, not $400. Only one state, Arizona, had started paying out. The Chicago Bears pushed back morning practice to afternoon after covid tests indicated nine players or staff members were positive, results that later proved to be false positives.

The Bears followed additional NFL-NFLPA testing protocol and confirmed all nine results as false positives. The Bears is scheduled to have a day off from practice. NFL released a statement revealing testing irregularities for other teams. Shuttered during the weeks that are typically the busiest of warm weather fishing season, Lake Michigan charter boat captains are still hoping to recapture revenue lost to covid before the cool weather arrives.

People were afraid to call. People were afraid to come fishing. May is typically the busiest month of their fishing season, but the pandemic created by covid changed that. And Winthrop Harbor-based captains said it was especially hard because they could not even access their boats when Illinois Beach State Park closed for social distancing safety measures imposed by state order.

Illinois health officials announced 2,356 new confirmed cases of covid and 17 additional fatalities and the statewide death toll to 7,874 since the start of the pandemic.

The statewide seven-day positivity rate stands at 4.3%. Since the start of the pandemic, 218,285 people in Illinois have been infected. 3,649,685 tests have been performed in total. Naperville had 198 active cases of covid on August 19th 2020, the highest number reported since the pandemic started in March 2020. The number eclipsed the record 164 active cases registered on May 24th 2020 and had remained below that number until August 2020.

The low point was June 28th 2020, when there were just 47 known active cases. Since then, however, the active case numbers have been going back up, breaking the record on August 14th 2020 when there were 177 cases and topping it again with 198 cases. Active cases are those in which the person has had covid for 14 days or less, meaning they are believed to be infectious and able to pass it to others.

The number of patients being treated for covid at Edward Hospital in Naperville has also been slowly creeping back up. After having just 4 people hospitalized for treatment on July 27th 2020, the number was 14 on August 21st 2020. DuPage County is seeing a 4.4% test positivity rate and Will County is seeing 7.1% test positivity. As covid continues to ravage the world, much attention is focused on a safe, effective, and widely available vaccine that would allow people to again embrace friends, go back to work, and ditch that lurking feeling of dread.

Getting there will not be simple.

As scientists across the globe race to create a covid vaccine that is safe and effective, the American public appears sharply divided when it comes to the prospect of getting vaccinated against the new virus, which has so far infected roughly 5.5 million and killed more than 172,000 in United States. Chicago’s tourism season may wrap up early as hotels and some city attractions, struggling with fewer visitors and revenue losses, consider shutting down. Chicago Public Schools had barely released its remote learning plan when the Chicago Teachers Union announced it had filed grievance over the guidance that union President Jesse Sharkey made without input from teachers.