Prairie State Wire

Illinois has one of the strictest schedules in the country to reopen businesses, public spaces, schools and religious institutions, leading critics to say it is time to reopen the state and get things moving again.

Wirepoints founder Ted Dabrowski and writer John Klingner published a commentary June 11 that outlines five reasons that Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s justifications for keeping the state closed are falling away.

First, they note, hospitalizations from COVID-19 are down more than 50 percent in the state. The Illinois Department of Public Health’s own data reveals that on April 28, the state’s hospitalizations peaked at 5,036, and as of June 11, there are 1,914 individuals in the hospitals diagnosed with COVID-19. 

Deaths related to the condition caused by the novel coronavirus have also moved in a downward trajectory. Wirepoints notes that the seven-day average for deaths related to COVID-19, on May 15, was 117, and the most recent average was 58 deaths.

“Both of these peaks happened before Phase 2 even began,” wrote Dabrowski and Klingner.

Hospitals are prepared for a possible surge in COVID-19 cases, and although that concern over preparation made sense months ago, it does not anymore, according to Wirepoints' statistics.  

“About 15,000 hospital beds are unused today, or about 40 percent of the state’s total supply," Dabrowski and Klinger said. "Illinois never saw an occupancy of more than 70 percent of its beds since the government began reporting hospitalization data on April. More than 43 percent of intensive care unit [ICU] beds are also unused, totaling over 1,700 beds. Illinois’ occupancy of ICU beds never exceeded 78 percent of its total, even during the peak. And around 77 percent, or 4,500, of Illinois’ ventilators are currently unused. Illinois never used more than 46 percent of its ventilators since the beginning of April.”

Many of the deaths from COVID-19 have been noted to come from state-regulated retirement homes and long-term care facilities, where the state’s most vulnerable residents live. Instead of shutting down the whole state, Dabrowski and Klingner suggest that switching the focus to protecting residents of long-term care facilities  will be more effective than restricting the actions of the general public.

“Long-term care residents make up just 1 percent of the state’s population but they’ve contributed to 53 percent of all COVID-19 deaths,"the Wirepoints analysis noted. "That’s 3,083 of the state’s 5,792 deaths as of June 5. Fix the long-term care problem and the number of new Illinois deaths will continue to collapse.” 

Illinois residents know who is most vulnerable, and individuals with pre-existing conditions are aware of that. Wirepoints suggests that because these people know they’re at risk, those individuals are more likely to protect themselves from the potential spread of the novel coronavirus.

Finally, they note, the school-and university-aged residents of Illinois will have lost six months of education by September, and they’ve been largely unaffected by the COVID-19 crisis.

“Given what we know about COVID-19 and youth, there’s no reason to stop them from going back to school," they wrote. "Only four Illinoisans under the age of 20 have died from COVID-19. At least two of them had pre-existing conditions. And just 21 youths 20 to 29 were victims of the virus. Sixteen of those had pre-existing conditions. While losing anyone to COVID-19 is a tragedy, fatalities under age 30 have been so rare that they shouldn’t be a reason for keeping Illinois’ nearly 3 million K-12 and college students from progressing with life.”