News keeps happening. Get updates between editions of Chicago Public Square on the Square Facebook page. (You don’t need to be a Facebook member.) And now the news:
‘Leadership malpractice.’ Gov. Pritzker slams President Trump for refusing to reopen enrollment for Affordable Care Act plans so uninsured people can get health coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic.
■ Defying science, Trump Wednesday said, “a scarf is better, it’s actually better” than a mask for protecting people from the virus. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ Politico’s Jack Shafer on journalists’ calls to stop broadcasting Trump’s falsehood-ridden news conferences live: “I find their efforts more troubling than I do Trump’s lies.”
■ The president’s top pandemic adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, reportedly is under increased security after threats from conspiracy-minded clods who find his deference to the president lacking.
Elsewhere …
■ In hard-hit New York, mobile morgues.
■ The New York Times graphs where America didn’t stay home even as the virus spread.
■ The Times’ David Leonhardt: “Red America is finally going on lockdown … much later than they should have.”
■ Georgia’s governor acknowledges he’s been clueless for months.
■ Under arrest, a Florida pastor has agreed finally to shut down his megachurch.
■ But now: Hurricanes.
‘Something is better than nothing.’ PolitiFact tackles the “mask or no mask” question.
■ Los Angeles’ mayor wants everyone to wear them.
■ Definitely don one if you’re coughing or sneezing.
■ Home Depot has cut off sales of the good stuff, the N95 masks.
■ How to make your own.
Cop’s coronavirus death. Updating coverage: A Chicago police officer reportedly has become the department’s first to succumb to COVID-19.
■ Jazz patriarch Ellis Marsalis Jr. is dead after apparently contracting the virus.
■ CNN’s Chris Cuomo describes what his infection has done to him—including hallucinations and tooth-chattering chills so severe he chipped a tooth.
■ At last word from his wife, beloved Maywood-born singer-songwriter John Prine was hanging on.
■ Ed Farmer, the voice of the White Sox for decades, is dead at 70.
When does it end? Experts tell BuzzFeed News, “Social Distancing Might Stop. And Start. And Stop. And Start. Until We Have A Vaccine” …
■ … but, answering a Chicago Public Square question at her news conference yesterday, Mayor Lightfoot predicted that, someday, “there will be cause for celebration,” maybe including a parade honoring the city’s essential workers (at 13:55 in this video).
■ Now that the mayor is taking Square’s questions, what would you ask her? Email suggestions to Qs@ChicagoPublicSquare.com.
Which makes washing hands tough. Lightfoot’s order to suspend water shutoffs in the pandemic doesn’t help those whose service had previously been disconnected.
■ Chicago Housing Authority residents get a rent reprieve through April 30.
■ Police last night kicked runners and bicyclists out of Lincoln Park.
■ The city’s received hundreds of complaints about businesses that are open during the lockdown—but shouldn’t be.
‘Better-off Americans are still getting paid and are free to work from home, while the poor are either forced to risk going out to work or lose their jobs.’ The Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index finds the rich sheltered and the poor shafted.
■ Last week’s national unemployment claims more than doubled the previous week’s record …
■ … including 178,000 in Illinois alone.
■ State unemployment sites around the country are crashing under the crush of new filings.
■ Illinois’ site has taken to splitting the alphabet in half on different days of the week.
■ Ex-Obama administration leaders and a former Stripe executive have launched U.S. Digital Response, a kind of Peace Corps for tech volunteers to help government agencies struggling to respond to new online demands.
Ways to help. If you’ve had COVID-19 and recovered, your blood could provide clues to treatment or a cure.
■ If you have any health care experience, Chicago and Illinois want you.
■ Meet a nurse working in a COVID-19 unit who therefore can’t be with her family.
Pandemic portraits. A photographer is touring the city, taking photos of families on their porches during the lockdown.
■ Chicago’s theater community shares tales of the quarantine.
Phone merger. T-Mobile is absorbing Sprint—over public interest groups’ objections.
■ Signs are growing Apple this month will roll out a cheap and small new iPhone.
| Help keep Chicago Public Square coming. Tap here. |
Thanks, Chris Koenig, for making this issue better.