One at a time or all at once? Downstate Illinois debates Gov. Pritzker's stay-at-home order

St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^ | April 28, 2020 | Taylor Tiamoyo Harris

[PBRCat]

“From a public health standpoint, any isolated, contained outbreak should not be taken into consideration when you’re formulating a broad-based plan,” John Wagner, Monroe County Public Health Department administrator, said of the county’s outbreak at Garden Place assisted living. “We do have to survive after this thing is done. Obviously life is more important than the economy, yes, except when we come out of this and we have all these people dying from no jobs, poverty, and homelessness.”

For Wagner, Gov. Pritzker’s statewide stay-at-home order, which he extended last week through the end of May, means “going blanketly across the state,” a solution that does not fit all areas of Illinois.

State Rep. Darren Bailey, a Republican from Xenia, has filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Pritzker’s order. A circuit court judge on Monday ruled in favor of Bailey, granting him a one-person exemption. Pritzker on Tuesday called the lawsuit a “stunt” and said it’s detrimental to the state’s efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus.

In Madison County, a committee is putting together a plan called “Opening Up Madison County Again” so named after President Donald Trump’s “Opening Up America Again” plan. Led by county board chairman Kurt Prenzler, the committee will assess how exactly the county will reopen when Pritzker’s order expires at the end of May.

The committee will meet with various business owners and medical professionals on April 30.

“The economy was shut down because of these models and predictions that were completely overblown, so we have to adjust to the data,” said Prenzler, who noted he backs the governor's stay-at-home order.

[PBRCat]

One size does not fit all. Pritzker claims to base his decisions upon science, but gets defensive when called upon to reveal his sources of medical data and models.

[BobinIL]

Pritzker won’t open squat until Chicago is ready to open!! He doesn’t want to piss off his voting base by letting down state reopen while the cesspool is still closed,