Just minutes and roughly 165 miles apart, Mayor Lori Lightfoot in Chicago and Gov. J.B. Pritzker in Peoria looked on as the first COVID-19 vaccinations were administered to health care workers earlier today.
In two made-for-TV news conferences — important as they try convince people hesitant about the inoculations — there was a sense of relief from both the mayor and the governor. Nevertheless, public health officials say it could be a year before the city and rest of the state reach the herd immunity necessary to return to some sense of normal. Whatever that might look like going forward.
That the two news conferences overlapped once again raises the question about how good the lines of communication are between those offices. It isn’t the first time they appeared to be out of sync.
Later in the day, Pritzker announced a first round of budget cuts totaling $700 million aimed at helping erase a projected $3.9 billion deficit, triggering a new round of partisan finger-pointing over who is to blame — beyond the pandemic — for the state’s sinking fortunes. Hiring freezes and spending cuts are in the offing. More are coming.
But he also said “Congress needs to act.”
The latest iteration of a COVID-19 relief package coming out of Washington excludes aid to state and local governments. At a separate news conference, Lightfoot blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, as “heartless” for not pushing to help state and local governments who’ve seen their tax revenues dry up amid business shutdown orders to fight the virus.
The mayor said she’s urging Illinois’ U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, fellow Democrats, not to capitulate to McConnell who has balked at the local government aid as Democrats have pushed back over his pet provision to shield businesses against lawsuits over COVID-19-related negligence.
And former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg will be nominated by President-elect Joe Biden to be secretary of Transportation, the Tribune’s Bill Ruthhart reports. That shuts the door on former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel who lobbied behind-the-scenes for the gig.
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The first COVID-19 vaccines were administered in Illinois today and a Chicago emergency physician received the inaugural inoculation at the Loretto Hospital in the city’s Austin neighborhood. The Tribune’s Gregory Pratt and Stacy St. Clair have the details here.
Lightfoot said she felt like a kid on Christmas morning as another four health care workers were inoculated.
In Peoria, a smiling Gov. Pritzker declared, “This is a beginning for the state of Illinois” as the first vaccinations were given at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria.
The Tribune’s Jamie Munks reports, Pritzker said the site was chosen to receive the first vaccines for the state’s event in part because the state’s strategic national stockpile is “nearby, and so this made it more convenient.” The state has not disclosed the exact location, citing security reasons.
The vaccination efforts will take up much of 2021, state public health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike and Chicago public health commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said at the separate news conferences. At the event in Chicago, Arwady said: “We’re probably going to be at it for another year before this virus is in the rearview mirror.”
Nationally the goal is herd immunity. Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief science adviser to Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government’s effort to get vaccines developed quickly, told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that about 75-80% of the U.S. population would need to be inoculated before folks should feel safe being in a crowd again.
Ezike acknowledged not everyone will be initially eager to get a shot: “I do imagine that as with any kind of activity that you’re trying to take on, there will be early adopters, there will be never adopters, there will be late adopters and there will be people in the middle,” she said.
“I know these people are hoping for some of those later or middle adopters to say, ‘Hey, I see someone who looks just like me, who does the same work I do, is from my community that’s getting this done, that’s from my state,'” Ezike said during the news conference in Peoria. “And so I imagine that there will be a big push toward later, maybe in the spring … And so there might be a big surge of people wanting the vaccine a little bit later, but I still think there are adequate numbers of people now, so this will be a continual process for much of 2021.”
Edward Hospital in Naperville and Elmhurst Hospital have delayed administration of COVID-19 vaccines because delivery of the doses was pushed back, a spokesman said. Pritzker was asked about it today and said “there was no delay” but rather some of the doses were scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday.
What’s happening now: The state announced 7,359 new COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours and an additional 117 deaths.
In new social media video, bipartisan group of Midwestern governors urging residents to take COVID-19 precautions over the holidays, shop local: Pritzker, along with Democratic governors Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and Republican governors Eric Holcomb of Indiana and Mike DeWine of Ohio created a social media video to encourage everyone across the region to remain safe heading into the holiday season. “We must continue to protect one another,” Pritzker says at one point. Watch the video here. They also encouraged people to shop locally.
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The group of governors created a similar video before Thanksgiving, urging residents to rethink traveling over the holiday.
Second COVID-19 vaccine, this one from Moderna and NIH, nears approval from FDA, The Associated Press reports.
At-home COVID-19 test kit allowed by FDA: Consumers could have results in 20 minutes, the AP reports in this piece.
Mercy Hospital closure proposal rejected by state board: The Chicago Sun-Times reports that before the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board voted on the matter, members heard four hours of public testimony. Among the critics? Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn who called the planned closing of a hospital during a pandemic “preposterous.”
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The Tribune’s Alice Yin writes: “The city of Chicago moved more than a dozen states to its most severe travel order designation, but people returning from those areas only need to quarantine for 10 days now, officials announced Tuesday.
“Based on the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance that those exposed to COVID-19 should quarantine for 10 days, not 14, travelers from “red” level states are mandated to follow the shorter requirement, according to a city news release.”
In announcing budget cuts today, Pritzker contended state Republicans need to offer their own balancing plan after helping create Illinois government’s financial instability even before the coronavirus sent tax revenues crashing, my Tribune colleagues report.
They note: Republicans quickly countered that the budget problems were self-inflicted by Democrats who enacted what Illinois House GOP leader Jim Durkin called a “fantasy budget” that did not receive voter approval of Pritzker’s proposed graduated-rate income tax and a “fingers crossed hope for a federal bailout” that has not materialized from Washington.
The cuts include $425 million in reductions in grants and operating costs across human service, health care, public safety, economic development, agriculture and other budget lines. Pritzker’s menu also included $75 million in “personnel cost adjustments” to be “developed through negotiations with the unions.”
While he’s calling on Congress to act, rank-and-file Democrats in Washington sound resigned, as they try to hammer out a new COVID-19 relief package, to dropping, for now, their demand for fiscal relief for states and local governments, The Associated Press is reporting.
Republican lawmakers have pushed back on the measure as President Donald Trump has billed any kind of aid to state and local governments as a bailout for Democratic-run states and cities with long-standing fiscal woes.
Now, the AP reports, top Democratic allies of President-elect Joe Biden are backing a $748 billion plan offered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and hinted they won’t insist on a pitched battle for state and local aid now.
“I’m very disappointed by what I’m seeing,” Lightfoot said.
“I have made it very clear to our senators this is fundamentally unfair, unacceptable, and I expect our federal leadership to stand up and argue why federal, state and local funding absolutely must be part of a stimulus (package). If we give in — if we give in to the heartless Mitch McConnell on so many issues … where’s the floor? We are setting a dangerous precedent for the future.”
Pritzker said during an afternoon news conference he, too, is “disappointed” but is hopeful that in the new year, the Biden administration and a new Congress might get the job done.
From the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt: “Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s law department attempted in court this week to block local news station WBBM-Ch. 2 from airing body camera footage of Chicago police officers raiding an innocent woman’s home and handcuffing her while she was naked.
“The city also filed a request to have the woman, Anjanette Young, sanctioned for allegedly violating a confidentiality order.
“Lightfoot officials made the extraordinary request to prevent a television station from airing a news report in an emergency court filing Monday evening, which a federal judge rejected. The courts long have ruled against efforts to prevent news companies from publishing reports, saying it’s an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.” Read the full story, including Lightfoot’s comments, here.
Other Chicago news: Lightfoot today called it “a mistake” for downtown aldermen to oppose her plan to fast-track a special property tax district for North Michigan Avenue, the Tribune’s John Byrne reports here. She says business owners on the Magnificent Mile want to pay into a fund to improve security following looting incidents there and coax shoppers back to the area during the pandemic, and called the move by downtown aldermen Brendan Reilly and Brian Hopkins to mothball it “aldermanic prerogative at its worst.” She was referring to the City Council tradition of members of the body following the wishes of local aldermen on issues affecting their wards.
Alderman fined by city’s Ethics Board for representing former colleague in criminal case: South Side Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st, who is also an attorney, was hit with the fine for representing former Ald. Joe Moreno, who faces charges of insurance fraud, disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice for a case involving him allegedly falsely reporting his car stolen. Byrne has that story, too, here.
Pritzker Foundation gives $10 million to develop diverse tech talent in Chicago: “This is a project to build a more inclusive economy and get more people the support they need,” said Penny Pritzker, former U.S. Commerce Secretary, sister to Gov. J.B. Pritzker and trustee of the family foundation. Robert Channick has more details here.
Biden nominates Buttigieg for Transportation secretary
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During a lengthy primary season, they were vying to be the Democratic nominee for president.
Now “(f)ormer South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg will be nominated by President-elect Joe Biden to serve as secretary of Transportation, making him likely to become the first openly LGBTQ Cabinet secretary confirmed by the U.S. Senate,” the Tribune’s Bill Ruthhart writes.
“Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a leader, patriot, and problem-solver. He speaks to the best of who we are as a nation,” Biden said in a tweet Tuesday night. “I am nominating him for Secretary of Transportation because he’s equipped to take on the challenges at the intersection of jobs, infrastructure, equity and climate.”
Ruthhart notes: “The historic choice of Buttigieg, however, dealt a blow to former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, whose behind-the-scenes pursuit of the Transportation post was met with vocal opposition from top progressives and African Americans within the Democratic Party over his City Hall response to the 2014 police murder of Black teenager Laquan McDonald.” Read the full story here.
There are some reports that Emanuel might still be in line for an ambassadorship.
State politics: Illinois Rep. Kam Buckner (26th District) was elected chair of the Illinois House Legislative Black Caucus today. Immediately following the vote, he said: “I am privileged, honored, and humbled by the trust that my colleagues, the members of the Illinois House Legislative Black Caucus have placed in me to be the caucus chair for the 102nd General Assembly.”
The caucus recently made headlines after it endorsed embattled House Speaker Michael Madigan’s bid for another term in the leadership post, saying in a statement that its members believe they are “in a more advantageous position” to deliver their priorities under his leadership, the Tribune’s Rick Pearson reported last week.
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