Stories by Heather Cherone

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 are continuing to surge among young Chicagoans on the city’s North Side and there is no sign that will change anytime soon, Dr. Allison Arwady said Thursday.

New appointments at Cook County’s mass vaccination sites for those now eligible will open at 6 p.m. Wednesday online. 

Police officials continue to use “deeply flawed” records that list approximately 135,000 Chicagoans as members of gangs more than two years after Inspector General Joseph Ferguson found the databases were riddled with errors, according to a follow-up audit released Wednesday.

Three times in the past year, officials have trumpeted the news that COVID-19 case rates had dropped, prompting them to allow businesses to reopen or expand capacity. And three times, officials have returned to the microphones approximately one month later to warn that COVID-19 was spreading fast.

Opening Monday, the two sites will have the capacity to administer 5,000 vaccine doses per day, officials said. Only Chicago residents will be eligible for appointments.

City officials announced Monday they will open a vaccination site for union workers—the first of its type in the nation, they say—designed to administer 1,200 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine per day.

Approximately 84% of all Chicagoans are now eligible for the vaccine, as Chicago enters the third phase of the vaccination effort that began in mid-December. 

The final decision on vaccine eligibility remains with local health departments, officials said. That means the change will not expand eligibility in areas of the state, like Chicago and Cook County, where demand for the COVID-19 vaccine continues to far outpace supply.

Twenty-nine cases of a COVID-19 variant first discovered in Southern California and believed to be more transmissible have been discovered in Illinois, state health officials announced Thursday.

Chicago will not allow businesses to increase their capacity indoors amid an “alarming” increase in COVID-19 cases and illnesses, but they will be allowed to serve more customers outside, officials announced Thursday. “We are seeing a very disturbing trend,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters.

Progressive groups launched a campaign Thursday to ratchet up the pressure on Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago City Council to spend the city’s $1.9 billion share of the latest federal COVID-19 relief package on direct aid to Chicagoans struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“These conversations are a slap in the face to people that have suffered great atrocities over time in this country," said Ald. Jason Ervin, the chairman of the City Council Black Caucus.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the revised ordinance was “better” than her administration originally proposed and will “put our city on the right track to full ensuring that our residents have clean air, no matter what ZIP code in which they reside.” 

The series of changes proposed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to the way the Chicago Police Department serves search warrants does not go far enough to prevent mistaken raids, Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Wednesday. “These ‘wrong raids’ have traumatized innocent people, including children,” he said.

Approximately 84% of all Chicagoans will be eligible to get the vaccine starting Monday, according to rules set by Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

The plan is designed to give developers incentives to build in parts of the city where there is little affordable housing or where longtime residents are vulnerable to displacement, officials said.

Aldermen are sharply divided on the issue after a proposal from Mayor Lori Lightfoot was significantly revised. Alds. Jason Ervin, Maria Hadden, Byron Sigcho-Lopez and George Cardenas weigh in.

Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said the uptick in virus cases in Michigan is of special concern because it appears to be driven in part by the spread of more transmissible variants of COVID-19.

Confirmed cases of the coronavirus have risen 23% in Chicago during the past seven days, prompting Chicago’s top health official, Dr. Allison Arwady, to say Tuesday she is “really worried” the city could be on the cusp of another surge of the pandemic.

The ordinance drew fierce opposition from cultural and preservation groups and those working to turn the homes of civil rights icon Emmett Till and blues legend Muddy Waters into museums, who said it could block their efforts. 

The Chicago City Council and Mayor Lori Lightfoot are set to face off over an effort to create an elected police oversight body.

Aldermen endorsed a measure Monday that would allow the city to expand the number of banks authorized to hold its cash — even as city officials vowed to keep pressuring financial institutions to do a better job lending to Black and Latino Chicagoans.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot says that a proposal requiring museums to get special permission from city officials before opening in residential neighborhoods is “highly problematic.” Her criticism makes it unlikely that the measure, which has drawn fierce opposition, will advance this week.

Property owners and developers who want to demolish existing buildings in Pilsen and near the 606 trail would be required to pay a fee that would be used to fund affordable housing projects across the city, under a proposal set for a final vote Wednesday.

COVID-19's deadly toll has hit Black and Latino Chicagoans hardest, accounting for 71% of all deaths in Chicago, while those groups make up just 66% of the city’s population, according to city data. 

Illinois residents who work in higher education, government and media will be eligible for the COVID-19 starting Monday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Friday. The expansion of the vaccination effort does not include residents of Cook County or Chicago.