Coronavirus live blog, July 1, 2020: New normal for reopened Chicago, suburban schools come fall likely to be very different

Several states continue to see a surge in coronavirus cases ahead of a holiday weekend. Nearby, Indiana halted plans to move to a new phase of their reopening. The governor of Michigan closed down indoor seating in bars as new outbreaks were reported.

Health officials in Illinois said another 30 people have died from COVID-19 — with the state nearing a grim milestone of 7,000 people lost to the pandemic. And the state continued with its gradual reopenings with casinos making adjustments and schools are making plans for a different looking academic year.

Here’s what happened in the fight against the coronavirus in Chicago, the state and the nation.

News

8:45 p.m. New normal for reopened Chicago, suburban schools come fall likely to be very different

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Goodbye, field trips and perfect attendance awards. Hello, one-way hallways, daily temperature checks and quarantine rooms.

That’s some of what we can look ahead to now that Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave his approval last week for schools in Illinois to reopen for in-class instruction this fall, encouraging schools to welcome back kids and staff under detailed state guidelines aimed at keeping them safe.

In Chicago’s new normal, there will be face masks on everyone over 2, bans on handshakes and any other touching, tons of hand-washing and six-feet social distancing requirements in classrooms, on playgrounds and everywhere else at school. Everyone who enters school buildings will get temperature checks, too.

But how that all will work and what the rest of school is going to look like are among the things still to be decided by school districts in the city, suburbs and statewide as schools face the realities of welcoming back to classrooms kids who are likely to be behind academically after learning from home all spring.

Read the full story by Lauren FitzPatrick here.

8:05 p.m. Trump says he looks like Lone Ranger in a mask and likes it

WASHINGTON — After long resisting wearing a mask in public, President Donald Trump said Wednesday he thinks it makes him look like the Lone Ranger — and he likes it.

“I’m all for masks. I think masks are good,” Trump told Fox Business in an interview. “People have seen me wearing one.”

Trump’s comments came a day after Republican lawmakers suggested that the president wear a mask in public to set a good example for Americans.

“If I were in a tight situation with people, I would absolutely,” Trump said in the interview.

Trump has long resisted being photographed in a mask. In early April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a recommendation that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures were difficult to maintain.

Read the full story by The Associated Press here.

7:25 p.m. More help on way for COVID-slammed businesses as Congress send relief bill to president

WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday easily passed a temporary extension of a subsidy program for small businesses slammed by the coronavirus, speeding the measure to President Donald Trump.

Approval by voice vote without debate came after Democrats pushed the legislation through the GOP-controlled Senate late Tuesday as spikes in coronavirus cases in many states led to renewed shutdowns of bars and other businesses.

Trump was expected to sign the measure.

The legislation extends the June 30 deadline for applying for the program to Aug. 8. Lawmakers created the program in March and have modified it twice since, adding money on one occasion and more recently permitting more flexible use of the funding despite some grumbling among GOP conservatives.

Read the full story here.

6:40 p.m. Illinois casinos angling to clean up now that coronavirus closing is over

Imagine Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra sitting down for a hand of blackjack, with their trademark banter muffled by surgical masks — not to mention a plexi-glass partition separating all three.

Pass on the Rat Pack star power, take a hit of hand sanitizer, and you’ve got an idea of what a COVID-19 casino looks like.

Illinois gamblers got their first glimpse of that Wednesday as the state’s 10 casinos reopened after three months of an unprecedented statewide shutdown.

Hundreds of clear partitions separated slot machines, cash counters and card dealers sprawled across the gaming floor of Rivers Casino in Des Plaines, where some bettors were so eager to get back to the action in the age of COVID-19 that they lined up before it opened around 11 a.m.

The state’s most lucrative casino hadn’t taken in a chip since March 16, when Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office shuttered the state’s 10 gambling houses as well as the 36,000 slot machines scattered across more than 7,000 bars, restaurants and other establishments.

Read the full story by Mitchell Armentrout here.

5:45 p.m. Michigan governor closes indoor bars, allows to-go cocktails

LANSING, Mich — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Wednesday that she was closing indoor seating in bars in parts of the state, including a college town where one brewpub has been linked to about 140 infections.

Whitmer also signed a bill allowing bars and restaurants to sell to-go cocktails in an effort to help those businesses.

Bars won’t have to close down completely under Whitmer’s new executive order, and taverns in the Upper Peninsula and much of northern Michigan are not subject to the mandate due to low numbers of reported COVID-19 virus cases in those areas. All bars may still keep open their outdoor patios. The order takes effect at 11 p.m. Wednesday.

“Following recent outbreaks tied to bars, I am taking this action today to slow the spread of the virus and keep people safe,” Whitmer, a Democrat, said in a news release. “If we want to be in a strong position to reopen schools for in-person classroom instruction this fall, then we need to take aggressive action right now to ensure we don’t wipe out all the progress we have made.”

Read the full story here.

3:45 p.m. 30 more die from COVID-19 as neighboring states limit bar and restaurant space amid surges

As several states continue to see a surge in coronavirus cases ahead of a holiday weekend, health officials in Illinois said another 30 people have died from COVID-19 — with the state nearing a grim milestone of 7,000 people lost to the pandemic.

In total, 6,951 people have died in Illinois from COVID-19. On Wednesday, officials also said there were 828 newly confirmed cases.

Within the past 24 hours, state laboratories took in 33,090 test results. More than 1.6 million tests have performed in Illinois, officials said.

Illinois reported 828 new cases, maintaining its streak of seeing fewer than 1,000 new confirmed cases daily since June 3, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

But Gov. J.B. Pritzker and health administrators are watching health metrics in the state to determine whether a Phase 4 opening last Friday will play any role in upticks in cases, as many states have seen. Phase 4 allowed for indoor restaurants and bars to reopen with capacity limits, as well as museums, zoos and gyms, among other businesses.

Read the full story by Tina Sfondeles here.

2:35 p.m. Indiana delays lifting capacity limits on restaurants, bars

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana will keep capacity limits in place for restaurants, bars and entertainment venues because of worries about a possible increase in coronavirus cases across the state, Gov. Eric Holcomb said Wednesday.

The state’s reopening plan had called for those restrictions to be lifted this weekend, but Holcomb said he would keep them in place until at least July 18. The state will also continue its current 250-person limit on social gatherings.

Holcomb said he was concerned about recent increases in hospitalizations across Indiana involving COVID-19 cases and other states that have seen fresh outbreaks after lifting restrictions on bars and other businesses.

Since June 12, restaurants have been allowed 75% capacity in their dining rooms, while bars, nightclubs, bowling alleys, museums and amusement parks have been open at half capacity.

Read the full story by The Associated Press here.

1:11 p.m. Some speculated Chicago protests would spread coronavirus; Experts say they didn’t

There is little evidence that the protests that erupted after George Floyd’s death caused a significant increase in U.S. coronavirus infections, according to public health experts.

If the protests had driven an explosion in cases, experts say, the jumps would have started to become apparent within two weeks — and perhaps as early as five days. But that didn’t happen in many cities with the largest protests, including New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C.

In what’s considered the first systematic look at the question, a team of economists determined that only one of 13 cities involved in the earliest wave of protests after Memorial Day had an increase that would fit the pattern.

In many cities, the protests actually seemed to lead to a net increase in social distancing, as more people who did not protest decided to stay off the streets, said that study’s lead author, Dhaval Dave of Bentley University.

“The large-scale protests can impact both the behavior of the protesters and the behavior of the non-protesters,” said Dave. The paper was released last week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, but has not been published by a peer-reviewed journal.

Drawing from data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, The Associated Press reviewed trends in daily reported cases in 22 U.S. cities with protests. It found post-protest increases in several cities — including Houston and Madison, Wisconsin — where experts say other factors were more likely the main drivers.

Read the full report here.

12:04 p.m. Dart, other county sheriffs demand state prisons start accepting inmates again

With little room to spare at Cook County Jail, Sheriff Tom Dart is seeking a court order to compel the state to take custody of inmates who had been housed at the jail since the coronavirus outbreak.

The Illinois Sheriffs’ Association, which Dart is a member of, filed the motion Thursday in downstate Logan County asking a circuit court judge to approve a preliminary injunction that would order the state to accept inmates who are housed in county jails, but should be in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections.

These inmates — unlike detainees at the jail who are awaiting trial — have been convicted and sentenced.

Some of these inmates served their sentences but need to to be transferred to IDOC custody before their release.

Since the outbreak IDOC officials told sheriffs said they needed time to prepare new intake procedures at state facilities to contain the virus, but have continued to decline to accept transfers from county jail for months.

Read the full story from Matthew Hendrickson here.

10:01 a.m. Republicans, with exception of Trump, now push mask-wearing to fight coronavirus

In Republican circles — with the notable exception of the man who leads the party — the debate about masks is over: It’s time to put one on.

As a surge of infections hammers the South and West, GOP officials are pushing back against the notion that masks are about politics, as President Donald Trump suggests, and telling Americans they can help save lives.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, on Tuesday bluntly called on Trump to start wearing a mask, at least some of the time, to set a good example.

“Unfortunately, this simple, lifesaving practice has become part of a political debate that says: If you’re for Trump, you don’t wear a mask. If you’re against Trump, you do,” Alexander said.

It’s a rare break for Republicans from Trump, who earlier this month told the Wall Street Journal that some people wear masks simply to show that they disapprove of him. And the Republican nudges for the public — and the president — to embrace mask-wearing are coming from all corners of Trump’s party and even from friendly conservative media.

Read the full story here.

9:03 a.m. ‘Second wave’ could stunt national economic rebound

A resurgence of confirmed COVID cases across the South and West — and the suspension or reversal of re-openings of bars, hotels, restaurants and other businesses — is endangering hopes for an economic rebound in the region and perhaps nationally. At stake are the jobs of millions of people who have clung to hopes that their layoffs from widespread business shutdowns this spring would prove short-lived.

On Thursday, the government is expected to issue another robust monthly jobs report. Economists have forecast that employers added 3 million jobs in June, on top of 2.5 million added in May, clawing back a portion of the record-high 21 million that vanished in April at the height of the viral shutdowns.

Yet any such news might already be outdated: The jobs report won’t fully capture the impact of the COVID upsurge in the South and West and the desperate steps being pursued to try to control it. The re-closings of restaurants and bars, and resulting job cuts, mark an about-face from what appear to have been premature efforts to restart the economy before the pandemic had been contained.

“We’re still in a very deep hole,’’ said Diane Swonk, chief economist at the firm Grant Thornton. “This makes the June employment report backward-looking instead of forward-looking.’’

Read the full report here.

8:24 a.m. Illinois ends June with about half the daily COVID-19 deaths and new cases as in peak month of May

As coronavirus cases flare to record highs in other states that reopened earlier, Illinois closed out the month of June with another round of low daily numbers Tuesday, indicating the state’s pandemic curve is still arcing downward — for now.

The Illinois Department of Public Health announced 23 additional deaths attributed to COVID-19 and 724 newly confirmed cases of the virus. That raises the state’s death toll to 6,923 among the 143,185 people who have tested positive for the virus since late January.

The state averaged about half as many new cases and deaths each day in June compared to May, when Illinois hit its apparent coronavirus peak.

The state suffered almost half its overall caseload and death toll in May, with about 67,300 positive diagnoses and 3,076 lives lost. That means officials announced an average of about 99 deaths and 2,172 new cases per day.

Read the full story by Mitchell Armentrout here.

New cases

• DeAndre Jordan says he has tested positive for the coronavirus and won’t be joining the Brooklyn Nets in Florida when the NBA season resumes.
• The Illinois Department of Public Health announced 23 additional deaths attributed to COVID-19 and 724 newly confirmed cases of the virus on Tuesday.
• Illinois reported 14 COVID-19 deaths Monday, its lowest daily total in three months for the second day in a row as the state’s reopening is underway. That brings the state’s total death toll to 6,902.
• The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association say 16 players tested positive for coronavirus in the first wave of mandatory tests done in preparation for the restart of the season.

Analysis & Commentary

12:07 p.m. Minor League Baseball’s canceled 2020 season is yet another cruel blow

For all the sacrifices and deferred dreams the novel coronavirus forced upon the sports world, many are paired with some solace, knowing that there will be a next year.

One sector, from top to bottom, doesn’t have that luxury.

The long-anticipated announcement Tuesday that Minor League Baseball’s 2020 season will be canceled is a blow to thousands of minor leaguers who just saw the thankless, debt-inducing, harrowing road to the majors sidetracked, perhaps permanently.

It is a gut punch to the staffers still remaining at the 160 affiliated minor-league clubs who have held on through furloughs and pay cuts and added even more creative duties to their usual titles in the name of keeping their jobs. With an entire calendar year of virtually no revenue, many more will lose their jobs.

And — because what’s a pandemic in our country without a little opportunism? — it may represent a death knell for dozens of franchises that Major League Baseball placed on a chopping block in the service of shaving a few nickels and creating more efficiency, long-term growth of the game be damned.

Read the full guest column from Gabe Lacques in USA Today here.

7:51 a.m. Fantasizing about what to do after the pandemic is over

I’ve started to think of it as The After. I mean that time when it will be safe for me and the rest of the world to do all the stuff we used to do before COVID-19 showed up and ruined the party.

The After is the time after we’ve lived through this pandemic, those of us who do live through it.

I suspect that everyone, like me, is fantasizing about what to do in The After. What restaurant to go to. What theme park to visit. What ballet to see. What singer to hear. What park to barbeque in.

Basketball is something that I really miss, but most of the guys I’m playing with and against are over the age of 60 or, like me, over the age of 70. We aren’t going to be playing again until this COVID thing is really over. It’s just too dangerous for us to bang bodies under the board and huff and puff around the court.

I’m sure everyone — all over the world — has one or maybe many lists of what to do in The After.

Read the full guest column from Patrick Reardon here.