May 1, July 4. Mark your calendars for two milestones pegged by President Biden in his first major address to the nation:
■ May 1 for all states to make
all American adults eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine …
■ … and July 4 for safe gatherings
in small groups to
celebrate Independence Day.
■ Chicago City Hall warns businesses and
others it’ll be watching carefully over the weekend and into next week to make
sure St. Patrick’s Day celebrations
don’t violate pandemic crowd limits.
(Cartoon:
Keith J. Taylor.)
COVID’s covert conception. An investigation by the
Sun-Times and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation concludes
the pandemic was raging through the Chicago area for weeks before it
was publicly recognized.
■ Also: “At the height of the pandemic’s first wave, most Cook County COVID-19 deaths were Black residents. Since then,
white suburbs bore the brunt. It continues to hit Latino areas …
hard.”
■ Chicago Public Square one
year ago today: “Photos compare
famous places before and after the coronavirus pandemic.”
No shot wasted. That’s the goal of
a startup
Dr.B, which aims to
text people about COVID-19 vaccine doses that otherwise would go
unused.
■ Cook County was set to
open 20,000 vaccination appointments
at noon Friday.
■ Coming soon:
Phase 1C.
■ Experts tell the Tribune: Don’t be picky about which vaccine you get.
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil
Steinberg talks to
medical staffers reluctant to get vaccinated.
■ The Conversation: “Vaccine
passports” for the inoculated could
further fracture society along class lines.
■ Your Square columnist
got a second shot Thursday.
Square is free for all thanks to generous support from a few. You can join them by naming your contribution—a one-time tip or a
continuing pledge. And today,
National Support Chicago Public Square Day*, is
a great time to do that.
Cash coming. The
American Rescue Plan
signed by Biden Thursday could put
money in people’s bank accounts as soon as this weekend.
■ An online calculator can
project how much to expect.
■ One of the plan’s champions hails
it as the biggest shift in U.S. social policy since the Depression: “It’s
saying
families are too big to fail, children are too big to fail, the elderly
are too big to fail.”
■ Three aldermen are calling for
Chicago to test a universal basic income—monthly, no-strings-attached
payments for Chicagoans living in poverty.
■ Cook County’s launching a pandemic
rental assistance program for tenants and landlords:
Up to $15,000 for rent and utility payments.
‘Right the wrongs of the past.’ Chicago aldermen are moving
ahead with action on
reparations for people descended from the enslaved.
■ A suburb is set to become
first in the country to compensate Black residents for historic
racism.
‘F*ck Tucker Carlson.’ That, Illinois, is your U.S. Sen. Tammy
Duckworth—who lost both legs in the Iraq war—tweeting
about the Fox News windbag’s
mockery of women in the military.
■ Jezebel: “Duckworth
quipped that she …
likely dances better than Tucker.”
■ Care about how Illinois’
legislative district maps are drawn under new census data?
Politico lists
10 public hearings to be held next month.
Donald ducking out. Disney is
closing its stores in Chicago and Rosemont.
■ Amazon’s opened
its third Fresh grocery store in the suburbs.
■ Netflix is
cracking down on password sharing.
Step 5: Don’t forget clocks on desktop computers, laptops,
telephones, cell phones, beepers, pens, refrigerators, convection
and microwave ovens, TVs, VCRs …
Sunday’s return of Daylight Saving Time means it’s time to revisit a
time-honored (or at least not time-dishonored)
step-by-step guide to making the switch.
■ “Time activist” Scott Yates says
it’s time to “end the barbarism of changing the clock twice a year.”
■ It could be
tougher than usual this year
because of the pandemic.
Back in My Arms Again. That’s just one of several songs Square readers
recommended for a “completed my vaccination” playlist. Thanks, Paul Clark, Jim Grimes, Cameron Masiclat, Sarah Hoban, Jane Cowen Schoen and Sandra Slater.
■ Have more suggestions? Drop
them in the comments section at the bottom of this page.
■ Want to gift someone who’s
joined Inoculation Nation? You could do worse than this T-shirt.
■ Thanks to reader
Mike Braden
for making this edition better.
Graham Crackers is a Chicago Public Square
advertiser.
_____
* Not a legal holiday.