With the state on Tuesday reporting another 26 deaths in Illinois due to the coronavirus, Gov. J.B. Pritzker will extend the state’s stay-at-home executive order until the end of April.
There are now 99 fatalities in Illinois due to the outbreak, health officials said. Tuesday marks the highest number of coronavirus deaths the state has confirmed in a single day.
The news of an extended stay-at-home order was anticipated, and Pritzker has said at daily press briefings that the decision was being evaluated on a day-to-day basis. The current executive order expires on April 7, and that’s when some Illinois schools were initially set to open. Mayor Lori Lightfoot earlier this month announced Chicago Public Schools would be closed at least until April 21.
Pritzker will issue another disaster proclamation, which will allow him to extend the executive order. The governor plans to sign it on Wednesday, according to the governor’s office.
Pritzker’s new executive order will run until April 30 and will also mandate the continued closure of Illinois schools.
Health officials on Tuesday said an additional 937 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the state, bringing the state’s total to 5,994 cases. Of the 26 fatalities recorded on Tuesday, 17 are in Cook County, officials said.
The Democratic governor for weeks has said the federal government is not pulling its weight when it comes to helping states procure personal protective equipment (PPE) and hospital equipment, like ventilators.
On Monday, Pritzker said the White House sent hundreds of thousands of the wrong type of masks to Illinois. After weeks of criticizing Trump’s response to the outbreak on national television and daily in press briefings, Pritzker last week said he was thankful for a White House shipment of N95 masks, which came after Pritzker asked Trump personally for help.
Instead, the state received surgical masks, Pritzker said.
“My team is sorting through the shipment of 300,000 N95 masks the White House personally told me would be sent to our state,” Pritzker said Monday. “And while we do not have a final count on this yet, I can say with certainty that what they sent were not the N95 masks that were promised, but instead were surgical masks, which is not what we asked for,” Pritzker said of the shipment.
The governor’s office on Tuesday said “FEMA is aware of the issue and is working to correct it.”
Pritzker has not personally spoken to Trump about the mistake, the governor’s office said.
