Pritzker / Casten Stick to the Script While Our Most Vulnerable Continue to Get Sick

Press Release

This weekend the Chicago Tribune reported that 14,882 workers and residents of long-term care centers have tested positive for COVID-19, and that more than 2,400 have died.

According to the article:

"The newest figures show some homes continue to struggle. There are 31 facilities across Illinois that have had more than 100 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 329 where someone has died. Friday's data listed 286 homes with active outbreaks where someone has died, leaving out more than 40 facilities with coronavirus-related deaths.

About two dozen facilities have experienced larger-scale outbreaks in which at least 4 of 10 sickened residents died. For example, at Norridge Gardens in Cook County, 53 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and 27 of them have died, according to the state data.

And at Artis Senior Living of Elmhurst in DuPage County, there have been 42 cases and 19 deaths, meaning about 45% of people who tested positive died."

Governor Pritzker continues to warn against the dangers of crossing state lines, while sending Illinois workers to Wisconsin to work on his summer home; refuses to open up youth sports with safety measures in place, while sending his wife and daughter to Florida for equestrian training, according to a Patch.com report. Sean Casten writes letters to get subsidies for special interests included in COVID relief packages. But neither of these so-called leaders are doing anything of any significance to address the very real danger coronavirus presents to our most vulnerable population: those living in long-term care facilities. Meanwhile, the state spent $64.8 million on a hospital at McCormick Place that might have provided a safer environment for many of the people in long-term care, only to tear it down after having treated about 3 dozen patients.

Jeanne Ives, a candidate for Congress (IL-06) said, "Two and a half months. Twenty-four hundred dead. And there is still no plan to move residents of these facilities out of harm's way. Only a plan to stick to their script. It's a disgrace."

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