Pritzker: Vaccination Over Isolation
State moves closer to re-opening but leadership gap in #ReturnToPlay widens
(Photo Credit: The Southern Illinoisan)
Governor J.B. Pritzker said something Monday considered to be a positive development for Illinoisans desirous for a return to pre-pandemic lifestyles.
If trends continue, a shift to “A Bridge To Phase 5” of reopening Illinois could happen sometime next week. This phase calls for further loosening of Covid-related restrictions in Illinois.
Pritzker said this during an appearance in Chicago:
I think the common view is that Illinois has weathered this storm well. I talk to the experts about this. I think everybody feels like we’re in a decent position. Again, following the metrics, we believe that we will be able to move to the bridge phase
Before his comments Monday, there was rightful cause to believe Pritzker would move the goalposts once again to justify continued lockdowns.
Earlier this year, in announcing a bridge phase (a transitional time frame before full scale reopening) Pritzker stated certain conditions had to be met before entering the next re-open phase. One of them was how 70 percent of people age 65 or over must receive one vaccination shot. If achieved, the milestone would initiate a roll back on restrictions. In March, that vaccination number was reached, but Pritzker ignored his own data-based benchmark and in citing reasons for staying in Phase 4, referred to an early spring surge in cases and concerns about virus variants abroad.
Monday, Pritzker could have easily spouted the same subjective, unvetted spin when asked about the state’s progress in moving closer to re-opening. While not promising the state would move to the bridge phase he gave encouraging remarks such as “we’re in decent shape and and moving exactly as I would hope…”
That is good news. Any boost in operating capacity from 25% to 50%, as would occur in the bridge phase, is good for retailers and other businesses. An increase to 60% for outdoor spectator events would be met with enthusiasm, especially after we just experienced a weekend with 80 degree temperatures. But what Pritzker didn’t talk about—and wasn’t asked about at a press briefing—continues to be the most destructive force in public health as it pertains to Covid and #ReturnToPlay.
The six-feet quarantine rule.
I wrote last week about foolish contact tracing and quarantining guidelines that are doing much more harm than good. If parents insist on testing their kids, my argument was how it’s best to lie by omission because the result of a positive test leads to unintended consequences—healthy kids stuck in quarantine.
The root cause of quarantine cases is the six-feet, close contact rule enforced by the Illinois Department of Public Health .
This is how IDPH classifies a close contact:
“Close contact” with a case is defined as living in the same house as a case, being an intimate partner of a case, being a caregiver of a case, or being within 6 feet of a case for longer than 15 minutes.
Earlier in 2021, in an effort to encourage in-person learning, the Centers for Disease Control trimmed social distancing guidelines in half from three feet to what had been the standard six feet.
While that revision was helpful in re-shaping classrooms to fit more students, without a similar amendment to the “six-feet, 15 minute” close contact rule, the result is more students in quarantine.
IDPH spokesperson Melaney Arnold said this to the Chicago Tribune:
(IDPH) alerted schools that more students may need to be quarantined when moving to 3 feet
That’s just what has happened, with one suburban school district having over 700 students in quarantine. Another with well over 100.
Every day, I get emails and DM’s about more sports teams shutdown for two weeks due to a positive test. Dozens, if not hundreds of lives, turned upside down because a teenager has a virus less dangerous than allowing him or her to go cruising with their friends on a Saturday night.
Yet we don’t hear anything about it from Pritzker or other so-called political or educational leaders. For example, this school principal at District 219 (Niles North High School) giddily promoted #TeacherAppreciateWeek.
All the while, almost two dozen Niles North girls soccer players are in quarantine this week due to a COVID-19 positive test.
(I’m not trying to pick on teachers here…they deserve recognition. I’m going after the leadership here. Where is the tweet with appreciation for the athletes that are stuck at home, secluded from their friends and the very teachers this principal is lauding? What about them, sir? Should they be as “excited” as you to get their “We Are North” t-shirts?)
Pritzker (or the aide who runs his social media) is a Twitter braggart, his feed filled with good deed after good deed, or suggesting how we should take time out of our day to celebrate the heritage of our fellow citizens.
I didn’t know it was #AAPIHeritageMonth until I saw this tweet. I’ll be sure to acknowledge all Asian-American and Pacific Island brothers and sisters when I see them and thank them for their contributions to our over-taxed, over-legislated state.
But where’s the recognition of the thousands of students unnecessarily quarantined these past few months? Where is the empathy for them or the understanding of how quarantines are derailing any progress being made with vaccinations?
Continuing this line of pejorative questions—where is that long awaited report from the Illinois High School Association on winter sports and Covid? The one that is supposed to say how sports was played all winter, indoors, with minimal disruption and no virus transmission?
Earlier this month, on the “Jon and Joe Show” podcast I co-host with Joe Aguilar, we had on as a guest, Stacey Lambert, assistant executive director of the IHSA.
Joe and I asked Stacey about data school’s gather and share and she had this to say:
At the end of the winter season, we put out a survey to all of our coaches who had a team in the winter season and asked them to fill out some information to tell us if they had an outbreak at their school or an outbreak amongst their team, if they contact traced it where did they contact trace it back to. We were trying to see if we were seeing a spread because of our sports that were taking place in the winter months. We were thrilled to see we did not see a spread in our sports. We had a low number of student athletes who tested positive in our winter sports and if they did test positive and the vast majority of those positives were traced to outside events, outside of high school sports
“We were thrilled to see we did not see a spread in our sports.”
Why is this not the lede quote in a press release from IDPH? Where are you Dr. Ezike? We’re almost two months removed from the end of winter sports and still nothing.
(This is pure speculation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the IDPH ordered the IHSA to sit on the report. Any data that does not support rampant virus transmission in small or large gatherings is in direct conflict with their pro-testing, pro-vaccine marketing strategy.)
In the absence of data that shows the truth, that Covid doesn’t spread through athletic competition, that the six-feet close contact quarantine rule is irresponsible public health policy and every time it leads to a shutdown, it further stains the perception, pushed out by Dr. Fauci and other public health officials, lapped up by mainstream media sycophants, that athletics is dangerous and causing “surges” in local communities, it further fuels the narrative used by politicians like Pritzker to keep following his voodoo “science” and push for more testing and vaccinations and not address what is actually happening in cities and communities throughout the state.
How isolation, the lonely environment created by quarantines, should be more of a concern than vaccination of healthy young people.
So once again, as so many times before over the past 14 months, we all should be asking one vital question.
Where are the leaders?