Read on Twitter
Dr. Allison Arwady, head of the Chicago Department of Public Health, is speaking to reporters during a 9:30 a.m. call. I'll live tweet.
Follow for updates and let me know if you have questions.
Story: https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/07/28/wisconsin-missouri-join-chicagos-list-of-quarantine-states/
Follow for updates and let me know if you have questions.
Story: https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/07/28/wisconsin-missouri-join-chicagos-list-of-quarantine-states/
Arwady: "We did add Wisconsin, Missouri, North Dakota and Nebraska to the list. Again, that is because they've reached the point where they're adding more than 15 cases per day per 100,000 [people]."
Arwady: For Wisconsin, "which we know is going to be of major impact to a lot of folks in Chicago, we've been careful to lay out the facts for commuting for work from Wisconsin. ... They need to limit their activities in Chicago to work-related activities ... ."
Arwady: This is being done to protect the status in Chicago.
Arwady: "The primary goal, certainly, is about education, about helping people recognize there is significant personal risk when people are traveling in states where the outbreak is in very poor control and when they return to Chicago or visit Chicago they are, in turn, ...
"bringing that risk to others."
"We have started to identify individuals who have clearly broken the quarantine. We're in the middle of doing some enforcement activities there."
They'll write tickets for $100-$500 per day to people who broke quarantine.
"We have started to identify individuals who have clearly broken the quarantine. We're in the middle of doing some enforcement activities there."
They'll write tickets for $100-$500 per day to people who broke quarantine.
Arwady: "The primary goal is education, asking people to do the right thing."
Employers have changed a lot of their travel practices to avoid in-person travel.
Employers have changed a lot of their travel practices to avoid in-person travel.
Arwady: They're not pulling over out-of-state license plates or collecting names at the airport, "but we are following up on individuals where we identified as a concern ... ."
Arwady: "We did look, for example, particularly with Wisconsin, we looked in detail which regions are having more out of control than others. But the bottom line is this, I think, can already be somewhat difficult and confusing for people in terms of what requirements are in ...
"place. And the fact of the matter is when a state overall is at that level, the outbreak within the whole state is not in good control."
Arwady: "... The bottom line is there are certainly parts of the state that are of more concern. That's true here of Illinois, right?" There are 39 counties with higher cases per capita than Cook.
Arwady: Indiana is in the 10-15 range and the city is "watching to see what happens." It's not an accident that some of Chicago's ZIPs with highest cases are near Indiana.
Arwady: "I would agree with the governor on that. I think where we look ahead to COVID, the hope certainly is we will have a vaccine available. My guess it that will start to become available probably early in 2021 ... . But we are really planning, even when a vaccine is ...
"available, that it will likely take a year to do a full rollout of that. There's production that needs to go in place, there's distribution. we expect that the vaccine itself will probably not be 100% protective. Throughout the whole period where we are starting to have a ...
"vaccine available ... we are going to continue to need to do mitigation efforts to control the spread of COVID. I do think sthat masks are one of the easiest things people can do to help really protect against the spread of COVID in the community. I do think they're going to ...
"be part of our future for quite a while to come, and the more people can start to recognize that COVID is just going to be part of our lives for some time period, and do all the things that we know work, that lets us have our new normal in place to the extent possible, ...
"that is around having masks in place."
COVID won't be over for "years." The Health Department is planning a two- to three-year frame. "I don't know we'll ever get to a point where COVID will be eradicated, to be perfectly honest."
COVID won't be over for "years." The Health Department is planning a two- to three-year frame. "I don't know we'll ever get to a point where COVID will be eradicated, to be perfectly honest."
Arwady: "Even within Wisconsin they've been recommending against travel to homes, other areas, etc.," when asked about families with second homes in Wisconsin.
Arwady: "People who have summer homes or people who have vacation plans are not exempt from this quarantine requirement. My recommendation would be, if possible, to think about changing some of those plans, to staying home, to heading to Michigan, which has a much, much lower ...
"rate of COVID than Wisconsin does. ... If people do decide to go to vacation homes or on vacation to Chicago, they need to be checking with their employers about whether they have the availability to telework, for example," or do other things to quarantine. "I know that's ...
"disappointing and hard for people, but it is unfortunately where we are. The state of Wisconsin has not even put a requirement for a mask in place." There's no sign their outbreak is turning around and there's "significant risk."
Arwady: There's no limit on people traveling *through* Chicago, as has been the case all along.
Arwady on 5.4 percent positivity rate: It was 4.9 percent yesterday. "Yesterday, we were at 229 cases per day on average; today we're at 240. Certainly we are concerned" when those numbers increase, "but we don't get too excited about one day of change."
Arwady: Our goal is to get that number back under 200 cases per day and percent positivity under 5 percent. The state has set 8 percent as a level of high concern; "for me, if we're over 5 percent, it's a signal, it's one other point of concern. But one day of those numbers ...
"don't bring me major concern."
Arwady: We are calculating that more conservatively here in Chicago than the state is. IDPH sites says Chicago's test positivity as 3.9 percent, as opposed to the 5.4 percent Chicago's health department reports.
Arwady: The difference is here, everybody takes the number of positive tests and divides it by either (here in Chicago) the individuals tested or (as in state) the number of tests performed.
Arwady: 1 in 7 Chicagoans has now been tested for coronavirus.
Arwady: "Bottom line is we would like to get both of those numbers ideally under 5 percent, and we'd like to see those case numbers going down." Chicago is "broadly in control" of its outbreak, but it does "give pause" to see what's happening elsewhere.
Arwady: "We're not seeing a lot of spread in workplaces. ... Workplaces have done a pretty good job, I think at this point, of putting a lot of protections in place." Early on, there were bigger outbreaks. "Not to say it can't happen, but it's not what we're seeing driving our...
"main outbreaks here in Chicago or around the country."
Arwady: The higher risk is where people are in settings that don't have careful protections in place. "We're seeing more concern where people are gathering with family and friends, where they sort of have their guard down and perhaps are not doing the social distancing and the...
"masks and all of the things that are in place more in the workplace setting. We do not want to limit the ability of people to work, particularly those who regularly commute from Wisconsin ... . But we've said that if they're coming to Chicago for work, they then need to limit...
"their activities for work to" work-related activities. "We felt it was a fair line between thinking about where is risk greatest and not wanting to unfairly limit the ability of our many commuters from Wisconsin. If Indiana gets on the list, we would do the same thing for ...
"Indiana commuters."
Arwady: "Again, I mostly want people to be aware of the risk, to be extra careful ... ."
Arwady: Hopefully Wisconsin can get its outbreak under better control.
Arwady: The only thing different about Wisconsin is commuters to Chicago from Wisconsin may continue to commute for work.
Arwady: "Chicago is not explicitly on anybody's list. I will note that I believe that Illinois, as a whole state, is at the 10 cases per 100,000 per day mark, and if they are, many of the East Coast states do update their travel quarantine orders on Tuesdays, as we do here. ...
"And they are using a cutoff of 10, which means we'll wait to see whether New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc., announce this ... but my expectation is Illinois as a whole will be added to the quarantine requirement list for those Northeast States, and Chicago would be ...
"included in that."
"Most likely ... I would not be able to travel to New York or New Jersey without quarantining just as a people from higher states have that requirement here."
"Most likely ... I would not be able to travel to New York or New Jersey without quarantining just as a people from higher states have that requirement here."
Arwady: For MLB, in the order, there is "specific language around that the commissioner can grant an exemption based" on a group's testing. MLB and other leagues/industries have had "strict requirements in place around bubbles," etc., "that have allowed them to continue some ...
"of that activity."
The city has been in "close conversation" with sports teams about balancing risk.
"We don't want that risk extending broadly to others in Chicago."
The city has been in "close conversation" with sports teams about balancing risk.
"We don't want that risk extending broadly to others in Chicago."
Arwady: "Where we identify cases in the course of an investigation, we're identifying people who have COVID who have had contacts with folks who have traveled from settings that they should have been under quarantine ... that would warrant a ticket. Similarly, we've been ...
"receiving some information about even city employees who may not have appropriately abided by quarantine." City could discipline them and CDPH could impose a fine depending on the circumstances. "Finally, there are some social media examples where people are flagrantly ...
"posting their social activities, clearly out and about in Chicago after being in settings that are subject to our quarantine order within the timeframe."
Arwady: "8 percent positivity, using the state's way of calculating positivity, is actually the sort of warning sign, if you will, in terms of needing to roll things back. The 5 percent for me is the place where ... marks for me the need to make sure we're doing additional ...
"testing ... . Just like we do at the citywide level, if we see a ZIP code that has high percent positivity for that week," they push for more testing there. If positivity creeps up, No. 1, it's a sign to ramp up testing. "Remember, percent positivity by itself is not an ...
"indicator that automatically leads to a particular change. If anything, it's really, the one I care about the most, is the number of new cases — that 240 that we're at today. That one is the best indicator of how much COVID we have in the population. As that number goes up, ...
"it means" it's likelier someone in a gathering will have COVID.
If we get up to 400 cases per day, "That is a line in the sand for us where we will have much more concern" and would need to make "serious decisions about pulling back on activities."
If we get up to 400 cases per day, "That is a line in the sand for us where we will have much more concern" and would need to make "serious decisions about pulling back on activities."
Arwady: They also consider how fast stats move up/down.
Arwady: 400 cases per day in Chicago would be equivalent to the 15 cases per day per 100,000 people they use to add states to the quarantine order list.
Arwady: She can't stress enough "we are worried about the increases we are seeing and uncontrolled outbreaks that increasingly we're seeing close to Chicago, particularly in settings where people still are not doing the basic things like wearing masks and taking COVID ...
"seriously. ... We're trying to play the long game in Chicago. We want to be able to remain the most open big city, which is what we are right now."
Arwady: "I want to be very honest that we continue to see these [racial] disparities," though not like they were at the beginning of the outbreak.
