As previously reported on QuadCities.com, thousands of businesses statewide including a large number of Quad-Cities businesses, benefited from over $275 million in grants given by the state of Illinois to small businesses negatively impacted by covid-19. According to the business grant website, the Business Interruption Grant (BIG) program was developed by Governor JB Pritzker and the Illinois General Assembly to provide $580 million in economic relief for small businesses hit hardest by COVID-19. BIG – the largest program of its kind in the nation – leverages federal funding provided by the... Read More

Hundreds of Quad-Cities arts, entertainment and leisure businesses and similar businesses statewide — including Rust Belt, Ballet Quad-Cities, RIBCO, Playcrafters, Black Box Theater and more — were given a helping hand today as Governor J.B. Pritzker announced more than $275 million for hard hit businesses across Illinois. Over 9,000 emergency assistance grants have been made to small businesses in over 600 cities and towns statewide through the Business Interruption Grants (BIG) program, according to the  Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO), making it the... Read More

It was 350 days ago when Illinois announced its first case of covid-19. Today, the state went over one million in cases, meaning almost one in 12 people in the state have tested positive for the virus, according to statistics from the Illinois Department of Health. As of Thursday night, 3,777 patients in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 780 patients were in the ICU and 422 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators, according to statistics from the Illinois Department of Health. Illinois health officials reported 9,277 new COVID-19 cases and 126 deaths Friday. The... Read More

As Illinois hits its one-millionth case of covid-19, Governor J.B. Pritzker announced today that Illinois’ 11 regions could possibly lift Tier 3 restrictions as early as next week if they’ve hit the right metrics. “On Jan. 15, exactly one incubation period from New Year’s Day, any region that has met the metrics for a reduction of mitigations will be able to move out of Tier Three of our mitigation plan,” Pritzker said during his online press conference briefing on covid. Illinois has been in Tier 3 mitigations since Nov. 20. The restrictions shut down indoor dining and... Read More

And now… the time is here… and so we face… the last story of this series… Since Sunday, we’ve been running massive, gigantic, action-packed features for you running down the top stories of 2020! We hope you’ve enjoyed the ride! On Sunday we gave you a look at January and February; on Monday we hit March; Tuesday rolled out April; Wednesday morning we showed you May and June; and Wednesday night it was July and August’s turn. This morning we unveiled September and October. And now, here we are with the last story of the series, giving you the biggest stories... Read More

Two days left in 2020, and so, today and the past two days, it’s been time for our look back at the year that was in arts and entertainment, 2020. Every day between now and New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, we’ll be posting stories painting the big picture on the year, a couple months each day. We hope you enjoy the look back, and let’s all hope for a happy new year and a much, much, much, much better 2021! Sunday we looked at January and February; Monday we hit March; Tuesday was April. Today, we have two installments. This morning, we showcase May and June, and later on this afternoon we’ll... Read More

The Quad-Cities, and the entire state of Illinois, has been on Tier 3 mitigation rules since Nov. 20. Have things gotten any better since then? Are we making positive progress to possibly get out of the mitigation zone? Governor JB Pritzker has already said that Illinois will not leave mitigations at least until after the new year, regardless of numbers, as a preventative measure. But if things continue to go in a positive direction, could we see any leeway after New Year’s Day? Despite a lot of bad news in regard to covid overall statewide, some encouraging signs have been seen in various... Read More

With the first shipments of the covid-19 vaccine hitting Quad-Cities and U.S. hospitals yesterday and today, people began to see a slight ray of hope at the end of the tunnel of covid-19 and 2020. However, that light has been pushed further away by the Federal Government, with no reason given. In his public address Wednesday, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said the next two shipments of the new Pfizer coronavirus vaccine to Illinois and other states have been “significantly reduced” by the federal government, and that the government and Pfizer “gave no reason” for the... 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

This morning, the first covid-19 vaccines to arrive in the Quad-Cities were administered to Genesis Health employees in Davenport. Dr. Robert Mixsell, Medical Director of Convenient Care and Alli Edmunds, R.N., emergency department at Genesis Medical Center, Davenport were the first two to receive the vaccine. It’ll be a while before the general public is able to receive the vaccine, with subsequent batches coming in being administered first to health care workers who are on the front lines of battling the disease. Still, there’s a lot of confusion and misinformation out there in regard... Read More