GOVERNOR’S BRIEFING
A senior member of the Governor’s staff tested positive for COVID-19 but was asymptomatic. As a result, they are all on a 14-day containment and are working from home. As a result, the Governor’s daily briefing was conducted from his home.
During today’s briefing, Governor JB Pritzker focused on his Restore Illinois plan. The Governor stated that the estimate when Illinois will hit its peak has been extended from late-April to early-May to mid-May to early-June.
Illinois’s R-naught value is now estimated at 1.0 meaning for every person infected, that person is infecting one other.
Under the Governor’s Restore Illinois plan, the Governor states that all regions are on pace to meet the metrics to advance to Phase 3 with the possible exception of the Northeast region. (PLEASE NOTE THE EXCEPTION BELOW WHICH WAS NOT ADDRESSED).
Under the Governor’s plan, they reconfigured the state’s 11 medical regions from 11 to 4. They did this by combining the city of Chicago with Cook County, the five counties surrounding Cook County, and three other counties (i.e. Grundy, Kankakee, and Kendall).
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The Governor reported that the northeast region’s positivity rate was 22.3% as of midnight on May 8th. The other regions are doing substantially better. Their respective positivity rates are:
- North Central = 9.1%
- Central 6.0%
- Southern 10.5%
Another metric that must be met is there must be an availability of at least 14% for hospital beds, ICU beds, and ventilators. By region, here is the current availability:
| REGION | Hospital Beds | ICU Beds | Ventilators |
| Northeast | 17.8% | 18.8% | 64.3% |
| North central | 41.1% | 40.6% | 64.9% |
| Central | 52.4% | 44.2% | 74.6% |
| South | 45.8% | 28% | 80.7% |
Readers can find all these stats here.
What was not addressed and is significant is that according to the Governor’s plan, in order to move to Phase 3, the following must occur:
- Testing available for all patients, health care workers, first responders, people with underlying conditions, and residents and staff in congregate living facilities.
- Begin contract tracing and monitoring within 24-hours of diagnosis.
Currently, the state is testing approximately 15,000 people per day. In order to meeting the testing requirement to move from Phase 2 to Phase 3, they are going to need millions of tests in order to be able to regularly test the population specified above unless they are going to take the unlikely position that they only have to be tested once.
WEDNESDAY – COVID-19 SURVIVAL WEBINAR
IRMA, in conjunction with the Council of State Retail Associations (CSRA), is hosting a complimentary webinar on Wednesday, May 13 at 11 am CST that will refocus your retail plan to not only survive COVID-19, but help you succeed!
The webinar will focus on positive messaging that can be incorporated into your current communication plans, and will cover how store operations must change, how to market yourself — including the do’s and don’ts of Facebook live — and how to get in the right mindset to not just survive, but to thrive as stores re-open.
Note: There is no cost to participate. This event is a special benefit being provided to IRMA members in conjunction with our partners at CSRA.
About the presenter
Bob Phibbs, known as the “Retail Doctor,” has worked with hundreds of large retail brands including Bernina, LEGO, and Yamaha, as well as the smallest mom and pops, and everything in between. Check out www.retaildoc.com for more information.
FACE COVERINGS SUPPLIERS
In order to assist retailers in the procurement of facial coverings for employees, IRMA has created a place on it’s website. Retailers can review and contact the supplier of their choice on IRMA’s website.
ILLINOIS COVID-19 IMPACT UPDATE
Dr. Ngozi Ezike, MD, Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health announced 1,266 new cases in Illinois, including 54 additional deaths. IDPH is reporting a total of 79,007 cases, to date, including 3,459 deaths, in 98 of Illinois’s 102 counties.
Over the last 24-hours, the state has conducted tests for 12,441 a total of 442,425 to-date.
As of midnight last night, 4,319 individuals were hospitalized for COVID-19. Of those, 1,248 (28.9%) are in the ICU occupying 33% of the 3,764 staffed ICU beds. Of those, 730 (58.5%) are on ventilators or 15.9% of the 4,590 staff ventilators.
Additional information can be found here. COVID-19 stats by zip code can be found here .