Today, Governor Pritzker announced a multi-State initiative with Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, and Kentucky to reflect an ongoing regional collaboration to work together on a strategy to reopen the economy using a fact based, data-driven approach to relaxing Stay At Home Orders. The Governor made clear that the agreement doesn’t mean that states aren’t making their own decisions within those parameters, it reflects an agreement to work together under those guiding principles. Each state is in agreement that widespread testing both for active infection and immunity as well as robust contact tracing and treatment protocols are baseline needs for relaxing restrictions.
The briefing today included representatives of three health care organizations launching a new partnership with the state to greatly expand testing capacity on the south side of the city and the south suburbs as well as the Latinx community to begin to bridge the gap in access to care in these communities. Howard Brown Health Care, a longstanding pillar in the LGBTQ community, announced they would be joining forces with Project Vida in Little Village to stand up a Care Station in that community, noting the historic rates of lack of health coverage and the reality that the federal stimulus package explicitly excluded undocumented people who are incredibly vulnerable at this time. The Governor said that there would be more information forthcoming concerning expanded capacity on the west side of the city as well.
Last week Governor Pritzker reported that the state was falling short of our goal of being able to process 10,000 tests per day in part because bulk testing machines by Thermo Fisher had not performed up to expectations, but that the company had been working diligently to address the shortcomings. Today he shared that those machines are now running at capacity with accurate results. The State had also been struggling to secure viral transport mediums (VTM) and swabs needed to perform tests. Through a partnership with Illinois Universities across the State and outside vendors there are no more shortages in supplies for State testing sites and through this partnership we are able to assist other testing sites. The Governor stated that any labs that are having issues securing swabs or VTM should contact their local emergency management agencies so that they can be provided with additional supplies.
Two days ago the third new drive thru site for testing was up and running in Markham in the South Chicago suburbs. Over 600 specimens were taken the first day. More drive thru testing sites will be opening across the State and these sites have the ability to run up to 1800 tests per day.
