At long last, the state of emergency due to covid-19 is coming to an end in Illinois. Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced in a statement Tuesday that the statewide public health emergency declaration will end on May 11, in line with Joe Biden’s announcement that the federal government state of emergency will end that same day. This isn’t to say that covid numbers have hit zero or that the virus is a thing of the past. Despite all its mitigations, Illinois remains a hotbed for covid spread in some spots, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy, which has been tracking each... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: At long last, after the pandemic has kept the state under lockdown for most of the past year-plus, Illinois is looking to reopen (mostly) on Friday. “After a tremendously challenging year, Illinois has now reached a defining moment in our efforts to defeat COVID-19,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said. “Thanks to the hard work of residents across the state, Illinois will soon resume life as we knew it before – returning to events, gatherings, and a fully reopened economy, with some of the safety guidelines we’ve adopted still in place.” According to the Illinois Department... Read More

Some call me a pessimist. Some call me a cynic. Some call me the space cowboy, some call me the gangster of love. I prefer to think of myself as, no, not Maurice, but, rather, a pragmatist. A realist. And realistically, I don’t see the next few months going well in terms of covid-19. Today, Kim Reynolds is going to talk about potentially pulling back restrictions she put in place a month ago in regard to the pandemic ripping its way through the Midwest, and especially Iowa. Many think she’s going to pull back the restrictions. I don’t think she should. I know everyone wants to get back to... Read More

BREAKING: As Iowa continues as a hot spot for covid-19 cases, Governor Kim Reynolds is extending mitigations for “at least another week” on the state. “We look at it on a daily basis, we review it on a daily basis, we review it on a weekly basis,” Reynolds said in a press conference today. “We still have a long ways to go on our hospitals, but they are seeing some relief. I’ve said all along, we’ll dial up and we’ll dial back as appropriate and so that’s the same thing that we’ve done from the beginning of the pandemic.” Iowa... Read More