Field hospital at McCormick Place closing, Pritzker sending back ventilators

Operations at the McCormick Place alternate care facility in Chicago are winding down and the state is sending ventilators back to California as the curve of COVID-19 cases continues to flatten.

Plans for deconstruction of the field hospital are underway, though 500 “negative pressure tents” will remain assembled.

“The McCormick Place alternate care facility was originally developed out of an abundance of caution and based on data projections of over 40,000 hospitalizations in a matter of weeks, and the facility was meant to relieve that anticipated pressure on our local healthcare systems,” Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a joint statement. “Our local hospitals and healthcare systems continue to operate with capacity, therefore, the McCormick Place ACF will stop operating in its clinical needs testing phase.”

Officials reported 2,994 new COVID-19 cases Sunday as the state ramped up testing to a single-day high of nearly 20,000.

There were 168 more deaths over the weekend, bringing the state’s total to 2,618. A total of 5,444 new cases were reported over the weekend. There have now been 61,499 positive tests in 97 counties.

A total of 319,313 tests have been completed.

Meanwhile, nearly one-third of the state’s 32,000 total hospital beds were available as of Sunday, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Twenty-six percent of its 3,672 ICU beds were available, as were 64 percent of its 3,690 ventilators. The latter is a change from last week, when 57 percent of the state’s 3,326 ventilators were available.

The change in demand has led Illinois to return 100 ventilators that were donated last month by California, Pritzker said.

“As it turns out, our stay-at-home order and all the other restrictions, the mitigation efforts that we put in place, have worked,” he said. “And so we do not need all the ventilators that we thought we would.”

In the initial days of the modified stay-at-home order, Pritzker said it is important for local municipalities and law enforcement to enforce the order, such as asking residents not to gather in large groups and to wear a face covering or mask in certain public situations.

“There’s no other way for us to do it,” he said. “We need the public to comply with the stay-at-home rule. Because that is how we’ve been defeating coronavirus.”

Pritzker also pushed back against suggestions that future federal COVID-19 relief funding for states and municipalities could be tied to making changes to so-called sanctuary cities or pension reform. He asked federal lawmakers who will negotiate on the next stimulus package to do what they can to aid states, both liberal and conservative, with budgetary issues caused by the pandemic.

It echoed similar comments he made during an appearance Sunday morning on CBS’ Face the Nation.

“I don’t know whether there will be strings attached,” Pritzker said. “I hope there aren’t too many because the fact is every state has a problem and it’s different in every state where they need to put the dollars. So putting more strings on it makes it much more difficult for us to move forward to get our economies going.”

Though Pritzker reiterated the state has flatted its curve in COVID-19 cases, he told reporters it was still unknown how long Illinois’ plateau will last.

“We’re in a flattened curve now and I’m hoping… that we begin to fall off that curve and our numbers begin to decline,” he said.

Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said Saturday that the state’s current R0 rate, or the number of new infections estimated to stem from a single case, is roughly 1.2, down from being over three when the pandemic first started.

“So we’re very proud that it came down and we hope that it is not going to see a significant rise… if people change their behavior,” she said.

A rate below one suggests the number of overall cases is shrinking.

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