Join us on washington journal primetime monday night, 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Illinois governor jb pritzker gave an update on how his state is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. This is about an hour. Good afternoon and thank you for joining todays public update. I am here with dr. Horace smith, dr. Tor and a doctor suzette mckinney, executive director of the Illinois Medical District and the operations lead for our alternate care facilities across chicago and the state, and bishop simon gordon,. I want to discuss the actions i our taken toward protecting more vulnerable populations, specifically focused on the black community, who have focused a disproportionate effect of covid19. For months, years, and even decades after we defeat this pandemic, we will surely look back and examine the biological and medical questions about this virus. Beyond that, we need to examine what americans learned about ourselves. The data accumulating over the last few weeks has shined a bright light on what seems like a unique american problem. Anyone could have told you what it would highlight long before the dado drew the picture generations of systemic disadvantages and access in communities of color and black communities in particular are now amplified in this crisis. In chicago, suburban cook county, greater st. Louis, cities and towns all across the state and nation. First, we need more ubiquitous testing. We are working hard to expand our state testing capacity, and as we do so, we are thinking seriously about where and how these tests are available and to whom. To that end, my team and i have worked to set up a partnership between the downtown larry Childrens Hospital and for federally qualified Health Centers on the cities citys south and west sides. These centers that welcome those who are low income, uninsured, or underinsured are lawndale Dale ChristianHealth Center, wellness, for an health. , the centers week will take specimens for 400 People Per Day and send them for testing. We aremetro east region, launching a similar operation. Week, threet locations of the Southern IllinoisHealth Care Foundation system, will be taking 470 specimens per day and sending them to Anderson Hospital in madison county. What anderson and lori are doing, looking beyond their front doors, represents the very best of illinois. I cannot thank them enough. No community is getting through this alone. The fastest way through his mask maximizing our resources across illinois and these labs are stepping up to make that happen for all of us. I am also excited to announce that our new state run South Suburban drivethrough Testing Center will open early next week in the Markham Harvey area. We will be taking hundreds of specimens per day with test results coming back to patients must much faster than the federally contracted labs. As for the drivethrough sites, we have secured an extension of our federal contracts while we work to transition these sites to run through state and local labs for faster results. Testing is crucial, but we also need to talk about what happens after a person gets a test or does not get a test, but has symptoms or a known exposure to covid19. How does that person protect themselves, their family members, their roommates, their loved ones . Across the state, we have Multigenerational Families living under one roof. We have families living in smaller Apartment Units that make selfisolating much more difficult. As part of our crisis preparations, we required each of our local jurisdictions to come up with an alternate housing plan to help residents quarantine in a safe place. Simultaneously, we at the state to 2000gan preparing up hotel rooms outside of chicago to support suburban and downstate communities. When a local Health Department needs help beyond its local alternate host housing plan, we can open the provision of these hotel rooms for additional capacity. We have rooms available in springfield, rockford, metro eased, the quad cities, mount carbondale,ia, to be, champaign ready activated by next week based on county needs. We are also providing support to the city of chicago and cook county. For people rooms are who tested positive for the virus, but have lowlevel symptoms and do not eat hospitallevel care. Availableother rooms for people exposed to a covid19 positive person. Who may need to move out of their home is up her cautionary measure to make sure they do not expose their families or roommates. This extends to our First Responder communities. Beal Health Departments will making decisions about these housing needs. Weight of the full our clinical and technical capacity to bolster our local Health Departments covid response. 6. 8 millionting dollars to mitigate every Health Departments Financial Stress during this crisis. These hotel rooms are in addition to the alternate compare capacity alternate Care Capacity at metro south island, vibraue hospital in springfield, and others. That the federal government has granted our request to use the va Hospital System to support covid19 patients as medically necessary. I also want to recognize the Illinois Primary Health Care Association and its vast network of Community Health care centers, who are working so hard across the state to support and improve the health of our residents, from cities to rural towns. These cities already played a Critical Role in Public Health through supporting our most vulnerable residents. I missed a pandemic, they are one of the first lines of defense against covid19. Centersnity Health Across illinois are receiving more than 51 million through the bipartisan federal cares act to sustain their response to this virus. I want to provide an update on on our rapid test distribution. We received 15 rapid test machines. We are still while working to acquire the necessary materials, we are deploying these machines in the following manner so that they are ready to go as soon as the new tests come in. Seven of these machines are going to the federally qualified Health Centers i mentioned earlier. Two each to chicago south and west sides and the remaining three to east st. Louis and the surrounding region. Another three will go to the Illinois Department of Human Services facilities, the Development Center and park forest, the shapiro develop middle center, and the Elgin Mental Health center. The final five will go to the Illinois Department of corrections facilities, logan, graham, dixon, and minard. I want to make sure that our plans make reflect equity and testingtesting and treatment. It is essential that Health Care Institutions fulfill their obligation to render health care in a nondiscriminatory manner. This is a crisis and providers may have to operate beyond their normal capacity and allocate limited health care resources. No one life is any more important than another. Issued guidance that vulnerable and historically marginalized communities must receive equitable care so that no person of color or person with disabilities suffers a disparate outcome due to a legacy of discrimination. It is in moments like these that we owe each other even greater expressions of humanity. With that, i would like to turn it over to dr. s ek for our forcal update dr. Ezike our medical update. Dr. Ezike good afternoon, everyone. I am inspired by your commitment to make sure that all lives matter and that everyone gets equal care. United, we stand and divided we fall. I am inspired by all of you who are following the recommendations to make sure that we do all we can to ensure the safety of our entire community. Unfortunately, i must report that 68 additional lives have and thereto covid19 1004 hundred 65 new cases 1465 new cases. That brings our total to 596 of 17,887 and a total cases. Health disparities and inequalities are Major Concerns to me as the Public Health director, and i have always encouraged our agency to use a Health Equity lens in every aspect of the work we do. In our covid19 data, we see alarmingly high rates of covid19 and the black population in the black population. This disparity is true both for paces cases and deaths. Overall, mortality rates among blacks are five times higher than among whites. When you break it down by age groups, the disparities are higher. Thepeople in their 50s, motel the rate is 12 times higher for blacks than their white counterparts. For people in their 60s, the rate is eight times higher for blacks than their white counterparts. For people in their 70s, it is 10 times. Comorbidities and overlying Underlying Health conditions, yes, they often contribute to more Severe Health conditions from covid19 and death. We know that africanamericans generally do have higher rates of heart disease, stroke, andr, asthma, diabetes black adults are nearly twice as likely as white adults to have higher rates of obesity as per the National Institutes of health. Black Life Expectancy to continues to be years shorter than the population as a whole, and there are many reasons for this. Lets not forget the centuries of structural and institutional racism. Additional issues that worsen the covid19 disparities include having jobs that put people at high risk of exposure, being underinsured or uninsured, liking access to regular medical care lacking access to ular mega local care medical care, and black populations living in multigenerational of people who live in close communities and who may be a risk or who have already been found to be positive. Also createdhave the covid19 equity team. It is comprised of our director for the center of minority other and it involves state agencies and Community Organizations that will serve as the voice and informational hub of how to accurately address health disparities. Whilel not stand idly by one segment of the population bears an unfortunate heightened burden of this disease. The equity team will identify emerging issues and patterns impacting medically and socially vulnerable communities while assessing and proposing specific actionable recommendations. Amongg must be increased the disproportionately affected populations. This will allow for earlier, more effective isolation and segregation of the exposed individuals. The healthday, equity team launched covid19 text messaging. You can opt in to receive Text Messages so that you can have the most Accurate Information about coronavirus and how you can protect yourself. Simply text the word covid 36. 250038 covidesp to text the same number. We must address the dramatic disparity we are seeing. Headongot to tackle it and we hope that these steps will start to do just that. I want to reassure the people of illinois that we are working for the health and safety of all people of illinois. We will not hide from the hard truth, but rather elevate the truth and then address it. We must all continue to stay at home. We must all continue to wash our hands. We must keep our six feet of distance so that we can turn the tide and end this pandemic as soon as possible. With that, i will summarize the comments in spanish. [speaking foreign language] [speaking foreign language] [speaking foreign language] [speaking foreign language] al [speaking foreign language] [speaking foreign language] i will turn it over to dr. Horace smith. Dr. Smith thank you. Stande is dr. Smith and i here today in dual role. Am a physician that one ofpastor our churches on the southside of chicago at one of our churches on the south side of chicago. Today, they are announcing some tremendous strides forward. Disparitiests about in health care are not new to us, but often they get pushed to the side. I can remember when the announcements were made about the disparities of the numbers of cases of covid19 in the African American community, people were astounded. Many of us were not surprised. These are issues that have been in these communities for a long time. It takes something catastrophic for us to pay attention. These communities not only need really, i want to praise the governor and mayor and all those who understand that these are endemic, longstanding issues. We must deliberately, all of us together, face the unpleasantries of what is happening in our nation. It is a very unique situation that africanamericans and latinos and others who have been all vulnerable who have been vulnerable for a long time have been hit the hardest. In scripture, we are taught that we owe the most to those who had the least. We must not be divided by it. We must be do what we have done today. We must make sure that supplies of health care are available. I would caution everyone to understand these disparities. Health care is a trust issue. If theres a community that does not trust institutions, you can live next door to a hospital, but youll wait until the last minute to go to the emergency room. That is not good health care. If there is no trust, then there will not be accessibility, so as we open these centers im so glad to hear them opening on the south side, the westside, where the people are hit the hardest. I would speak to my fellow neighborhoods and communities and tell them to please continue to observe handwashing, observe social distancing, observe wearing your mask outside. But also, i want to encourage you to not be afraid to get testing. The next step in the fight against covid is going to be universal testing. If we have a community that is vulnerable in small spaces, and yet they have all these comorbidities, we should not be surprised by the vast numbers who are infected and those who are dying. As a pastor and as a leader in health care community, i am appalled to see such death on such a wide basis. But again, we must join together. We must practice these things and we must connect with one another. Lets not be distant in any other way. We must commit communities, families connect communities, families. Lets make sure that our most vulnerable seniors and others are most care forward most cared for. , lets make sure we also attacked the longterm, institutional problems that have always been a part of our community. Thank you. May god bless you. It is my pleasure now to introduce dr. Mckinney for the update at this time. Dr. Mckinney thank you, dr. Smith and good afternoon. My name is dr. Suzette mckinney. I am the ceo of the Illinois Medical District. For the purpose of the state of response, vid19 in this capacity, i am responsible for overseeing the operations for each of these sites and coordinating with the city of chicago, state, federal, and appropriate county officials. I want to reiterate that these alternate care sites mccormick place, metro south, west lake, sherman, and a vibra, notintended to supplement, replace, our acute care hospitals. Used as step down facilities to open up that space within hospitals for the most critically ill. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our partners at the army corps of engineers and all the hardworking men and women on the construction and project management teams were working so diligently to bring these facilities online as quickly as possible. I would also like to thank Governor Pritzker and dr. Ezike for their leadership and for trusting me with the opportunity to serve the state of illinois in this capacity. As a native chicagoan and a product of the south side, i am honored to serve in this capacity, furthering my lifes work in Public Health and helping communities understand how we can combat the social determinants that are plaguing our Community Every day. For those of us who are christians, we know that easter is a major holiday in our community, but jesus did die for our sins and rose again just so that you could go to grandma we are asking you to stay home so that you will have the opportunity to celebrate with her at a later time. Even if you do not have symptoms, every time you leave the house, you are putting your live and the lives of others at risk. Please stay home. With that, i would like to introduce bishop simon gordon. Thank you. Bishop gordon thank you, dr. Mckinney. My name is bishop simon gordon. Area pastor in the beverly of the south side. And say that our governor has done such a good job of defending our state nationally. He is to be commended for fighting for us from the beginning to this time. I am gratefulat to the fact that he not only heated what the response was not only heeded what the response was in the African Union africanamerican community, but is doing something about it. Allow our community to get more testing, more accurate understanding of where we stand, as well as put our community in a better place for longevity and stress. We need our community of faith to join in. I am grateful for all of the churches who have decided and listened to the mandate and stopped having church the way we had it in the past. I am grateful for that. Im also grateful for so many who have change the way we have done funerals, which is traumatic for a lot of people, to be in a posture where they have to have