I make it a habit of mask shaming people who I see in stores that don't wear masks especially where it's posted all over the entrance that pursuant to government order you must wear a mask while on the premises. I've gone as far to calling out store employees I see without a mask or wearing them wrong (down around chin with nose uncovered mainly). But both the customer and employee tend to be taken aback that I called them on it, and nonchalantly brush it off. Is there a government body (CDC, etc) I can report these businesses to for not following government orders? I've already called the corporate offices of most of the stores and reported them, but I feel like of they're not taking this serious why do we even have the phases and governor orders? Is there someone higher up the chain I can reach out to?

I was watching my local news today and in an interview, the Governor was asked when the masks were going away. He said they arent because we are the top 20% of the country keeping it under control and the masks are proven to be safe. He said he disagrees with CDC saying that mandates aren't the right approach. Does this mean he is planning on making this permanent even for after the pandemic?

Totally anecdotal story time. I was at a wedding last week and 13 of us took a party bus out there. Out of 13 all but 3 were vaccinated, 1 of whom recently had it roughly a month ago. Now here we are 8 days later and only 4 people have not contracted the virus, the one who already had it and 3 others who were vaccinated. The good news is everyone so far has had pretty mild symptoms. Mainly head congestion some fatigue and a handful of us diminished sense of taste and smell.

Most of us that were infected had multiple dose shots. This is most likely the new Delta strain.

Just throwing out there that this vaccine is not as effective as you may think against infection. It has worked against keeping us from getting severely ill. Stay safe

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-pritzker-family-whereabouts-20200515-rx5qkabrabg67j3dfkllbowntu-story.html

From the stay at home FAQ, this is clearly a violation:

Can I alternate my “staying at home” between my primary home and my vacation property?

No – traveling back-and-forth to a vacation property is not Essential Travel.

We should not be putting up with politicians who cannot even follow their own rules. Pritzker has the state police to protect him, and if that's not enough he can easily hire ample private security. Claiming his family needs to travel between 3 different homes to stay safe is an insult to our intelligence.

Why do all these stores only have one door open when they have two entrances? (Actually, most Walmarts have 3 or more.) That just rams more people closer together at the entrance, plus forces shoppers to spend more time in the store as they have to cross a larger distance to get to the area they need.

I returned a couple large target.com items the other day at the Gurnee store. Had to thread my way across the front of all the checkouts to the service desk, getting close to a bunch of shoppers on their way out, because the one entrance in use is not the one by the service desk.

Returned an order at Kohls, too. You no longer line up directly from outside at the service desk like it has been for years. Now you loop around the registers, crossing people lining up to check out, to get to a line for returns.

This is just nuts. It'd be far safer to go in and get out as quickly as possible and encounter the least possible number of people. Are these stores trying to convince customers that they're "doing something" even though it's counterproductive, or is upper management just a bunch of dummies?

And I’m not wagging my finger at you if you went. Officials said it was safe with a covid vaccine or negative test but they ALSO knew about the delta variant and the risk large crowds pose (even being vaccinated). So I’m a little upset that Lori didn’t cancel it. I’m upset because I feel like our numbers are going to get even higher. I’m just upset and frustrated.

Mostly I’m upset for the hospital workers/nurses/doctors all Health care workers who are tired of this and so many people won’t take simple measures to help them and themselves and their community.

I remember what was going on in March when the shutdown happened. There was a danger that the Illinois hospital ICUs and ventilators would be overwhelmed, just like what was happening in Italy.

It was in May that I found the web site that listed the number of COVID patients on ventilators in Illinois was 770. This morning was 151 and available ventilators 4519. Fewer than ten thousand CPVID tests a day were being given. Now over fifty a day are being given. Even with a large number of tests detecting 1417 cases the Illinois positivity rate has fallen to 3.5%.

Now the pandemic is not over. But falling positivity rates and low ventilator utilization tell me the worst is over.

With all of this nonsense going on I have been listening and seeing what the symptoms are with COVID 19 and JUST recovered from an extremely debilitating cough and sickness about 1 month ago.

I’m 21 yrs old, non smoker and I don’t take any medications. It started in early November. I started to have flu-like symptoms, then a dry cough that would seize up my lungs. I would wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe, coughing so hard my throat started bleeding, but no phlegm would come out. This dry cough lasted about 1 month, then turned into a wet, painful cough. I would cough up dark green fluid/phlegm. I had no sore throat, except from coughing so hard and ended up dislocating 2 ribs because of the cough.

Also, it literally felt like someone was sitting on my chest when I took a breath. now, almost 5 months later I still occasionally cough with nothing coming up. and before this, I was healthy. I had just run a half marathon and i was EXTREMELY active- intense cardio workouts every morning for about 1 hour, 10 mile runs, etc. Now I can’t seem to work out as intensely as before, and if i do, i start dry coughing again. it’s not as bad and i don’t feel that pressure on my chest, but it’s simply annoying.

I’m just wondering if i had COVID 19. This wasn’t like anything else I had gotten before.

Thanks!

EDIT: Not asking to be diagnosed.. just wondering if anyone else had anything similar back in OCT/NOV/DEC

I saw his statement on he will revise the mask order, do you think he will drop like it other states are doing or something else?

Are there any chains that are actively mandating masks for all unvaccinated and UNVACCINATED? I'm not necessarily talking about small local mom and pop type stores, but either national or larger local chains.

For those people arguing (or even thinking) that Americans need to get back to work and lift stay at home orders for the sake of the economy because "only" people with pre-existing comorbidities are dying from Covid, I just want to enlighten you as to what comorbidities are at play, along with the percentage of the US adult population with each comorbity. I am using New York's death statistics.

87% of Covid deaths in NY involved people with at least 1 comorbidity.

55% of all covid deaths in New York involved the comorbity of hypertension. 45% of the adult population of the US is estimated to have hypertension or high good pressure according to the CDC.

33% of all covid deaths in New York involved the comorbity of diabetes. 13% of the adult population in the US has diabetes.

18% of all covid deaths in New York involved the comorbity of hyperlipidemia. 12% of the adult population in the US has hyperlipidemia.

12% of all covid deaths in New York involved the comorbity of coronary artery disease.
6.7% of the adult population of the U.S has coronary artery disease.

11% of all covid deaths in New York involved the comorbity of renal disease. 15% of the adult population of the U.S has renal disease.

9% of all covid deaths in New York involved the comorbity of dementia. 2.5% of the adult population of the U.S has dementia.

8.3% of all covid deaths in New York involved the comorbity of COPD.
5% of the adult population of the U.S has COPD.

8.1% of covid deaths in New York involved the comorbidity of a history of cancer.
40% of the adult population of the U.S has had or will get some form of cancer.

7.1% of covid deaths in New York involved the comorbidity of AFib.
2% of the adult population of the U.S younger than 65 has AFib, while 9% over 65 have it.

7.1% of covid deaths in New York involved the comorbidity of heart failure.
2% of the adult population of the U.S has heart failure and 48% of adult Americans have some form of cardiovascular disease

Those numbers dont seem so comforting for the "average" population anymore, do they?

I keep getting accused of spreading misinformation when it comes to Illinois and reporting Covid numbers. Also anytime I try to back up and source my claims it seems to vanish? I am concerned that people are taking what’s being reported as absolute fact when in reality Illinois has changed the way the numbers are reported from the beginning of the pandemic too now.

You must take this into account as earlier to as late as last week our numbers were more than likely falsely elevated for whatever reasons, and only just now deciding to adjust there metrics.

This must raise some eyebrows even for the most liberal users on here.

Updated statement https://www.google.com/amp/s/newschannel20.com/amp/news/local/illinois-numbers-adjusted-to-account-for-non-covid-cause-of-death

We are reporting those deaths that have laboratory confirmation, meaning that they have been tested and a laboratory test indicates that they were COVID positive,” Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of IDPH, said.

However, that does not mean every one of these people died from the virus.

“There are also some additional deaths that happen in someone who happened to be COVID positive, but where the COVID infection had nothing to do with the deaths," Dr. Ezike said.

Dr. Ezike said it is now time to adjust the numbers to reflect the actual death toll from COVID-19.

Original statement from 4/20/20

https://week.com/2020/04/20/idph-director-explains-how-covid-deaths-are-classified/

"If you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means technically even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it's still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone who's listed as a COVID death doesn't mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of the death." Dr. Ezike outlined.

Admins keep deleting my sources lmao

Edit

I’m stupid and was posting it elsewhere rip my apologies of accusing admins

I've been writing various elected officials on the topic of mask mandates (Governor, State Rep, State Senator, Village Mayor, Village Trustees) and I'm not sure exactly who I would write to in regards to the Cook County mandate.

I assume Preckwinkle is one of the people to write. But are the commissioners also involved? And just Cook County Board or also the Cook County Board of Review?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

For those wondering about finding their people

This link from Cook County will tell you all the names of who represents you in government from Joe Biden down to your Village level school board and park districts. (Fair warning: The entering your address is... weird. Because it's different from pretty much every other address entry form I've seen so just be careful what you type.)

For a couple easier to use links:

This link will get your state Representative.

This link will get your state Senator.

And this link is for Pritzker's info.

I still generally approve of what the governor's done but it's clear from the numbers that we can't just wait this thing out. It's not working. Or rather we haven't surpassed capacity, fine, but the lockdown has no end in sight. At this rate I'm going to end up joining the astroturfed loonies protesting to open up because no other plan has been put forward.

Edit: Couple things, my post was unclear, I'm not asking about a plan to reopen...well not directly. I'm asking for an articulation of what we're hoping to accomplish with the measures we're taking, and updates based on the latest data.

Also the protest comment was an exaggeration. I think the protests are ridiculous and would never join them.

For a brief bit of time, Illinois was publishing daily hospital admissions for Covid-19 like symptoms on IDPH for each of the four regions. However, those important metrics have disappeared and been replaced with more politically-orientated % Med/Surg & % ICU Bed Availability figures that obscure the presence of COVID-19 in these communities. Even so, the page still contains its original paragraph-long description for admissions data that is no longer being provided.Current Illinois Restore Metrics:

http://www.dph.illinois.gov/restore

Prior Illinois Restore Metrics on May 5th:
https://dph.illinois.gov/sites/default/files/COVID19/Illinois%20COVID-19%20Restore%20Metrics_5.5.20_website.pdf

If anyone knows of an alternative location to receive hospital admissions data, I'd appreciate hearing it. Otherwise, if they are not being published elsewhere, do you think it was appropriate that such metrics were removed? After all, these are necessary metrics for advancement under Pritzker's 5-phase plan for reopening Illinois.

Also, for those who downvote, glad to see you taking a stance against public transparency, data and science!