By Dave Dahl
SPRINGFIELD – Illinois is in a coronavirus compact with other Midwest states, but that doesn’t mean they are in lockstep.
“Obviously, we have different economies across these states. We share a lot in common; however, a lot of the ideas that we each have about our (respective) state are applicable to one another,” Pritzker said. “As for the date someone picks, look — does a state feel comfortable based on their populatoin that they are doing enough testing? How many out of a million people are getting tested in each state? We’re not where we want to be in this state.”
The other states are Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Minnesota. Iowa and Missouri are not in it.
The governor sounded excited about testing, saying enough “virus transport media” will soon be manufactured in Illinois to be more than enough for current labs.
But, he said, there is a caveat.
“You can give somebody a test, and it will tell you whether they have COVID-19 at that moment. That doesn’t mean something they did over the next hours didn’t cause them to contract COVID-19,” he said. “You’d have to do another test the next day to determine if they have it the next day. Should we reopen a factory and not test people every day? Every other day? I don’t know how long.”
Illinois had its worst day for coronavirus deaths, reporting 125 for a total of 1,072. Total coronavirus cases in Illinois number 25,733.
Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]
