Public Health
Cook County is bracing for a surge in coronavirus-related deaths. We check in with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who is not sick but chose to self-isolate after a member of her security detail contracted the virus.
The Cook County sheriff must begin implementing additional sanitation and precaution measures at the jail, but a federal judge rejected calls for the release of large numbers of detainees.
New statewide totals: 16,422 cases, 528 deaths
Data may show the number of COVID-19 cases in Illinois is growing at a slower pace than some projections had forecast, but Gov. J.B. Pritzker said his stay-at-home order will remain in place through the end of the month.
The 1918 Spanish flu was not even close to being Chicago’s first bout with fast-spreading disease. Geoffrey Baer looks at how Chicago managed a tidal wave of diseases in its earliest years.
New York Times calls jail ‘the largest-known source of U.S. infections’
Data released by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office shows 251 detainees have so far tested positive for COVID-19, as have 150 Sheriff’s Office employees. On Sunday, the jail recorded its first virus-related death.
The West Ridge neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city, but a cluster of zip codes on the South Side are not far behind, according to newly released data.
While most Chicago residents are staying home to avoid contracting or spreading COVID-19, the city’s first responders are as busy as ever – and they’ve been hit hard.
New statewide totals: 15,078 cases, 462 deaths
More than 75,000 people in Illinois have so far been tested for COVID-19, according to state health officials, and more than 6,000 tests are being conducted each day. But Gov. J.B. Pritzker had hoped to test thousands more by now.
Americans in overwhelming numbers are actively avoiding others as much as possible and taking additional steps to protect themselves from the coronavirus, according to a recent survey.
So far, three incarcerated men in Illinois — two who had been housed at Stateville prison in Crest Hill and a detainee at the Cook County Jail – have died from complications related to the coronavirus. A pair of court battles are now brewing.
Despite federal health recommendations, thousands of Wisconsin voters waited hours in long lines outside overcrowded polling stations on Tuesday so they could participate in a presidential primary election.
Governor thanks California for loaning 100 ventilators to state, vows to ‘pay it forward’
The state of Illinois surpassed a grim milestone it set less than a week ago: the largest single-day jump in deaths. Statewide, 380 people have now died from COVID-19 and 13,549 have tested positive for the virus.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot signed an executive order Tuesday ensuring all residents regardless of citizenship status have equal access to COVID-19 aid programs, saying the order is “statement of our values as a city and as Americans.”
Advocacy group: “Cook County officials have blood on their hands”
Detainee Jeffery Pendleton, 59, was pronounced dead late Sunday, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. He had been hospitalized since March 30 after he tested positive for COVID-19.
Juanita Irizarry, executive director of Friends of the Parks, is worried that if Chicagoans flocks to the city’s parks on this warm spring day, officials will crack down on access to all our green spaces.
The pandemic is causing extreme distress in communities all across Chicago. Chatham, on the city’s South Side, is home to a high population of African American senior citizens – a group that is doubly vulnerable to severe complications from the disease.
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