When Ald. Tom Tunney, 44th, got caught sneaking customers into Ann Sather, the landmark restaurant he owns on Belmont Avenue, he called it an “error in judgment.” The city called it a violation of new COVID-19 restrictions, and Tunney now faces up to $10,500 in fines.
When the Illinois Veterans Home in LaSalle failed to apply proper safety rules to protect military veterans and staff at the home, 32 veterans died. The administrator, Angela Mehlbrech, got fired and a state investigation is underway.
The two cases are symptomatic of a pathology of ineptitude and indifference on the part of some public officials in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The penalties represent the kind of no-nonsense enforcement that needs to be more common if we ever hope to beat the disease.
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The Chicago Tribune publishes a variety of columnists. Columns are opinion content that reflect the views of the writers and not necessarily the Chicago Tribune.
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In the state’s battle against the coronavirus, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his COVID-19-fighting colleague Dr. Ngozi Ezike of the Illinois Department of Public Health have provided effective leadership. But too many public officials and too much private resistance have subverted the effort. Pritzker needs to ignore the pushback and trust his impulse to continue cracking down.
The pandemic has had two distinct waves, with two different results for Illinois. In the first, from late spring to early summer, Illinois’ case count, deaths, positivity rate and other measures consistently ranked among the lowest in the nation.
In the more severe second surge we now face, Illinois has ranked among the worst. Over seven days ended Dec. 2, Illinois’ 957 deaths topped all states. The second-highest fatality number, 806, hit Texas, which has a population more than double that of Illinois.
What caused Illinois to go from among the best to among the worst? There is no definitive answer, but some contributing factors are clear.
Pritzker and Ezike remain vigilant against the disease. But we currently live under a stay-at-home advisory. Back in May, when the control measures worked, it was an order.
Epidemiologists say the pandemic backs down only in the face of strong regimens backed by stringent enforcement. “They were never strict enough here. There was always too much pressure to keep things open,” said Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of Northwestern University’s Institute for Global Health.
Pritzker is facing the public’s pandemic fatigue and political pushback, but the power of the current surge demands he move forward anyway. “It requires very, very tough controls,” Murphy said. “It requires a lockdown now.”
The science may be clear. The politics, less so. And Pritzker faces pushback — from politicians, business and religious groups and even the general public — that is no trifle.
Grandstanders such as state Rep. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, have waged resistance campaigns. Churches and restaurants have sued to overturn the governor’s rules.
Most of the lawsuits have failed: Pritzker has broad emergency powers under the Illinois constitution. But religious groups will be emboldened now that the U.S. Supreme Court last month barred pandemic-related restrictions on religious services.
The battle against biology has intensified too.
The coronavirus travels freely across state borders, and Illinois is surrounded by states such as Wisconsin, Missouri and Indiana that are bastions of ineffective enforcement. Iowa did not issue its first mask mandate until mid-November, and its per capita case rate since September has trailed only North and South Dakota.
The borders are a risk factor that demand more attention. More ambitious contact tracing would be a start.
Where Pritzker has had successes, he needs to double down. The University of Illinois has administered more than 1 million of its saliva-based coronavirus tests, with some students testing more than three times weekly.
The positivity rate on the Urbana campus has dropped below 1%, compared with a statewide positivity rate of around 10%. But the U. S. Agriculture Department hasn’t approved expanded testing, so the breakthrough at the U. of I. is limited to the campuses.
Pritzker showed resourcefulness early in the pandemic by securing planeloads of protective equipment from China and so many ventilators that he wound up sending extras to California. He needs to muster that creativity and energy again. Winning approval for an expansion of the U. of I. program would be a start.
A nine-month fight against a killer disease has taxed the governor and his staff. The state is relying on them to reboot and rally now in the effort to save lives while we wait for a vaccine rollout.
The pandemic fighters need hardly work on their own. There are people such as Murphy at Northwestern, experts at the University of Chicago’s new Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation and even the testing innovators at U. of I. The state’s strong health care and logistics sectors have much to offer.
Tennessee, North Carolina and other states have assembled COVID-19 task forces. Pritzker can be effective without such formalities, so long as he doubles down on available in-state expertise.
Mask mandates, targeted lockdowns, virtual schooling, border controls, contact tracing, fines and other enforcement: Every tool of the antiviral arsenal merits consideration. The goal should be for Illinois to rejoin the top tier of states.
In the face of an unrelenting pandemic surge, Pritzker needs to leverage all of Illinois’ vast resources and battle back against the coronavirus — by whatever means necessary.
David Greising is president and chief executive officer of the Better Government Association.
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