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Illinois logged more than 2,000 new coronavirus cases for a second straight day Saturday, once again ratcheting up concerns of a severe viral resurgence across the state.
Over the last 10 days, the state has recorded six of its highest daily caseloads since Memorial Day weekend, with the latest 2,190 additional cases confirmed by the Illinois Department of Public Health setting yet another two-month high.
Illinois has averaged 1,733 new cases per day over the first eight days of August — almost a thousand more cases per day than the state averaged over the first eight days of July.
The newest cases were confirmed among more than 48,000 tests, raising the statewide positivity rate over the last week to 4.2%. More than 3 million people have been tested overall.
Read more from Mitchell Armentrout here.
News
12:27 p.m. ‘Don’t they care about their health?’ - Europeans alarmed as U.S. surpasses 5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases
ROME — With confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. hitting 5 million Sunday, by far the highest of any country, the failure of the most powerful nation in the world to contain the scourge has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe.
Perhaps nowhere outside the U.S. is America’s bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy, which was ground zero of Europe’s epidemic. Italians were unprepared when the outbreak exploded in February, and the country still has one of the world’s highest official death tolls at over 35,000.
But after a strict nationwide, 10-week lockdown, vigilant tracing of new clusters and general acceptance of mask mandates and social distancing, Italy has become a model of virus containment.
“Don’t they care about their health?” a mask-clad Patrizia Antonini asked about people in the United States as she walked with friends along the banks of Lake Bracciano, north of Rome. “They need to take our precautions. ... They need a real lockdown.”
Read the full story from the Associated Press here.
10:58 a.m. Success of 2020 election hinges on U.S. Postal Service
WASHINGTON — Mail piling up. Constant attacks from the president. Cuts to overtime as record numbers of ballots are expected to pass through post offices this fall.
The success of the 2020 presidential election could hinge on a most unlikely government agency: the U.S. Postal Service. Current signs are not promising.
The Postal Service already was facing questions over how it would handle the expected spike of mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic, but several operational changes imposed by its new leader have led to mail backlogs across the United States as rumors of additional cutbacks swirl, fueling worries about the November vote.
“It seems like they’re just trying to turn customers away from the post office,” said Jim Sizemore, president of the American Postal Workers Union chapter in the Cincinnati region. He said his offices are behind on deliveries because of new rules specifying when mail can go out.
The pandemic has forced states to expand voting by mail as a safe alternative to in-person polling places. Some states are opting to send ballots to voters or allowing people to use fear of the virus as a reason to cast an absentee ballot. That’s led to predictions of an an unprecedented amount of mail voting in the presidential election.
Trailing in the polls, President Donald Trump has been sowing public distrust in the Postal Service’s ability to adequately deliver ballots and has, without evidence, said allowing more people to vote by mail will result in rampant corruption.
Read more from the Associated Press here.
7:40 a.m. How safe is voting by mail? It’s a ‘leaky pipeline’ in many states
BOSTON — Brace yourself for what’s expected to be the first U.S. presidential election conducted mostly by mail. It could be messy.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, voting by mail in a contactless and socially distant way seems like a no-brainer. States have made the option widely available — only 10 now require voters to provide an excuse beyond fear of COVID-19 when requesting a ballot by mail — and some three in four Americans are expected to embrace the option for the Nov. 3 presidential election, up from one in four in the 2018 contest.
But running a vote-by-mail election is surprisingly complicated, and there’s a lot of room for things to go wrong. Validating and counting a deluge of posted ballots in an open and accountable way presents a major challenge, one that only about a half dozen states are fully prepared for.
Read the full story from the Associated Press here.
7:36 a.m. Trump bypasses Congress, signs executive orders to extend unemployment benefits, defer payroll tax
Seizing the power of his podium and his pen, President Donald Trump on Saturday bypassed the nation’s lawmakers as he claimed the authority to defer payroll taxes and replace an expired unemployment benefit with a lower amount after negotiations with Congress on a new coronavirus rescue package collapsed.
At his private country club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump signed executive orders to act where Congress hasn’t. Not only has the pandemic undermined the economy and upended American lives, it has imperiled the president’s November reelection.
Perhaps most crucially, Trump moved to continue paying a supplemental federal unemployment benefit for millions of Americans out of work during the outbreak. However, his order called for up to $400 payments each week, one-third less than the $600 people had been receiving. Congress allowed those higher payments to lapse on Aug. 1, and negotiations to extend them have been mired in partisan gridlock, with the White House and Democrats miles apart.
Read more from the Associated Press and the Sun-Times here.
New Cases
- Illinois logged more than 2,000 new coronavirus cases for a second straight day Saturday and the virus has killed 18 more residents, raising Illinois’ toll to 7,631.
- Cubs plan workouts to stay sharp with weekend series postponed due to COVID-19.
- Newly reopened schools in Mississippi, Indiana and Georgia have already reported infections just days into the academic year.
Analysis & Commentary
10:47 a.m. Hope alone is not a success strategy
Two questions.
First, regarding Lebanese officials who ignored warnings about the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse in Beirut: Was it smart to do nothing?
Were they right to just leave the explosives sitting there? Considering the bother of disposing of 5 million pounds of fertilizer. The cost. And when you’ve gone to all the trouble, what would you have to show for it? An unblown-up city. The same thing they started with.
Inaction worked, for a while. For six years, nothing blew up.
Given that, would doing something have been worth it? I’d say yes, but then I am a cautious sort, by nature. Cope with explosives before they blow up, that’s my motto.
To the second question:
The Archdiocese of Chicago is sending 70,000 Catholic students back to school this fall, to in-person classes, in the face of the raging COVID-19 epidemic: Is that a good idea?
Maybe it is. New York City, the largest school district in the nation, seems to think so. Like disposing of explosives, keeping kids at home is difficult, on both parents and children. The former have to care for the latter, or pay for them to be cared for, or leave them unsupervised. Education suffers.
Read more from Neil Steinberg here.
7:45 a.m. In praise of Bud Billiken, banished in 2020 by COVID-19
Saturday was Bud Billiken Day. This year, “The Bud” was banished.
Since 1929, the annual Bud Billiken Parade has been the apex of Chicago’s sunny, sultry summers, an iconic South Side celebration of Black children as they head back to school.
This year, the largest African American parade in the United States was cancelled, for the first time in 91 years, called off by the merciless restrictions of COVID-19.
In 1929 Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the legendary Chicago Defender newspaper, launched the parade to celebrate childhood and the joys of summer. It was sponsored by the Chicago Defender Charities.
According to the parade’s website, in the 1900’s, a Billiken “was a charm doll embodiment of good luck and fortune and was also regarded as the guardian of children.”
Read more from Laura Washington here.
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Illinois logs second straight 2,000 case day (LIVE UPDATES) - Chicago Sun-Times
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