7,873 new coronavirus cases reported despite low number of tests being processed over holiday weekend (LIVE UPDATES)

Ashlee
Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Here’s the latest news on how COVID-19 is impacting Chicago
and Illinois.

Latest
108 more Illinois coronavirus deaths, 7,873 new
cases

The coronavirus has killed an additional 108 Illinois residents
and spread to 7,873 more, public health officials announced
Saturday.

The daily caseload was among the state’s lowest during a
resurgent month of November, but that’s mostly because a
relatively low number of COVID-19 tests are being processed by
Illinois laboratories over the holiday weekend.

The new infections were detected among 79,055 tests, holding the
state’s average positivity rate over the last week at 10.1%, as
low as it’s been in three weeks.

But the latest deaths attributed to the virus were logged at a
rate that’s risen to a troubling average for the state following
a drastic rise in outbreaks this fall. The virus has claimed about
106 lives per day over the last two weeks — almost three times
the rate this time last month.

Read
the full story here. News 1:18 p.m.
Illinois surpasses 12K coronavirus deaths, 700K cases
Ashlee
Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Eight months into the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19 has killed
12,029 Illinois residents while spreading to at least 705,063
people, according to the latest figures released by public health
officials Friday.

It only took nine days for the state to pass its latest
troubling milestones, after the death toll surpassed 11,000 and the
case tally eclipsed 600,000 Nov. 18.

The virus has claimed almost 2,300 lives this month alone and is
the currently the state’s third-leading cause of death behind
heart disease and cancer. Forty-one Chicago-area victims were among
the latest 66 deaths that officials have attributed to the
virus.

Read the full story here.

1:08 p.m. Small Brewery Sunday: Love, or possibly lose,
your local brewpub as pandemic slows down sales

The country’s expanding craft beer industry runs the risk of
going flat with brewpubs and microbreweries facing a winter of
siphoned sales, spurred by expected shutdowns to slow the spread of
the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the more than 8,300 independent breweries in the U.S., the
vast majority of them — about 6,000 — are small-producing
microbreweries and brewpubs, which thrive off of their on-premise
beer sales. Beer sales on location have plummeted during the
COVID-19 pandemic.

To raise awareness about local independent beer makers’
plight, the Brewers Association, the trade group representing
breweries, on Nov. 29 is promoting Small Brewery Sunday — slotted
between Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

Read the full story here.

9:22 a.m. ‘Shop Black’ campaign brings customers to
Chatham businesses

Black Friday shopping on the 75th Street Boardwalk in Chatham
was going to be an event, with an assortment of activities designed
to lure shoppers who would
spend their holiday cash in Black-owned businesses.

But after the recent surge in coronavirus cases, the festivities
were canceled, though some shops stayed open, and customers
continued to trickle in.

Stephanie Hart, owner of Brown Sugar Bakery, 233 E. 75th St.,
understood why the Greater Chatham Initiative canceled “Shop
Black, Shop Local,” fearing it could become a super-spreader
event. Still, she said, during the pandemic, it is more important
than ever to support Black-owned businesses.

The city recently launched Black Shop Friday, with the help of
community partners, to promote those businesses, listing 500 of
them on a new website, blackshopfriday.com.

“I think supporting Black-owned businesses, especially if you
live in a Black community, is so important. Why? Everyone that
works here, is from here,” Hart said Friday afternoon. “We are
providing jobs in this community.”

New Cases

• State health officials reported
  12,022 new coronavirus cases and 131 more deaths on
  Thanksgiving Day.
• 
  Chicago R&B artist Jeremih was reportedly transferred to a
  regular hospital room Saturday after spending at least a week in
  intensive care undergoing treatment for COVID-19.
• The World Health Organization has recorded
  65 cases of the coronavirus among staff based at its
  headquarters, including five people who worked on the premises
  and were in contact with one another.

Analysis & Commentary 9:14 a.m.
COVID-19 forces the question: How can we keep from warehousing the
elderly?

Every once in a while, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo,
says something I absolutely agree with.

At the beginning of the pandemic, he went on and on about how
every human life matters. I prayed: If he means this, maybe we can
see that reflected in our politics. As it happens, with all the
death this year, my friends in the religious order Sisters of Life
tell me that some pregnant women are rejecting abortion because the
last thing we need is more death.

Wouldn’t a newfound commitment to protecting human life be
something healthy to come from the COVID-19 ordeal?

But we seem to be heading in the wrong direction.

The Associated Press recently reported on the staggering number
of Americans dying in nursing homes during the pandemic, not just
from the coronavirus, but from neglect.

“As more than 90,000 of the nation’s long-term care
residents have died in a pandemic that has pushed staffs to the
limit,” the AP reports, “advocates for the elderly say a tandem
wave of death separate from the virus has quietly claimed tens of
thousands more, often because overburdened workers haven’t been
able to give them the care they need.”

Read the full column here.

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