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To:
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Chemical Industry Council of Illinois (CICI) Members
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From:
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Mark Biel, Chief Executive Officer
[email protected] or 217/522-5805
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Re:
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update – Legislature to Return to Springfield Next Week; Dow makes “Return to Work” Playbook Available; Update on COVID-19 Cases
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Legislature to Return to Springfield Next Week: Coming off the heels of Governor Pritzker’s demand that the General Assembly reconvene, leaders in the House and Senate have announced today that lawmakers will return to Springfield next Wednesday through Friday to tackle the budget and emergency legislation pertaining to COVID-19. Specifically, the Governor has called on lawmakers to pass a comprehensive plan to support families, small businesses and small towns through grants and loans for businesses, starting and restarting tax credits for small business, and job recovery for industries and businesses left out of the Federal Payroll Protection Program (PPP).
The House will meet in Springfield’s Convention Center and the Senate will meet in their chamber at the Capitol. It’s our understanding that lobbyists and other stakeholders will likely not have access to either building or lawmakers on an in-person basis while they are in Springfield. As such, any interactions will have to be conducted by phone, e-mail, or written documents.
The House issued a couple of protocol documents here and here for its members. These protocols are largely based on Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) recommendations to help ensure the public health and safety of legislators, legislative staff and other support personnel. These guidelines are fairly extensive and quite challenging to administer for 177 State Senators and Representatives and countless staff.
The House and Senate also issued a Joint Proclamation indicating they will only consider bills related to the budget, COVID-19, economic recovery, infrastructure projects and its funding, hospital assessment programs, laws scheduled to be repealed by June 1, 2021, and the 2020 General Election (mail-in voting).
The immediate issues of concern for CICI and the business community in “emergency” legislation pertaining to COVID-19 include attempts to expand workers’ compensation protections, raise unemployment insurance taxes, and other business mandates including PPE requirements or damages related to lack of PPE. When actual legislation becomes available and lawmakers begins taking up various measures, CICI will keep the membership updated through the Legisletter.
Dow makes “Return to Work” Playbook Available: CICI member company Dowhas developed safety processes for returning to work. It is comprehensive of the processes and procedures the company has implemented around the world to protect employees and communities.
The plan contains information on:
- Pandemic response plan and trigger criteria, including internal and external criteria to facilitate a regional approach
- Checklist and processes to evaluate site readiness for return to work
- Safety procedures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19
- Individual health – focused on inclusion and employee wellbeing
- Additional resources, including a helpful checklist for assessing the individual components of the plan
Update on COVID-19 Cases: The Illinois Dept. of Public Health (IDPH) is reporting a total of 3,792 deaths, an increase of 192 since yesterday which is the highest 24-hour increase to date. There are currently 84,698 positive cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, an increase of 1,677 cases from yesterday. In total, 489,359 people have now been tested in Illinois for the virus, an increase of 17,668. The positivity rate for the last 24 hours of testing is at 9.4% for the entire state.
You can check where these cases are occurring at the State of Illinois COVID-19 website which also contains more information on this outbreak. Also, IDPH has a case breakdown of the number of positive cases in Chicago and each county relative to the number of fatalities. The IDPH website also now includes a breakdown of the cases under each zip code in the state. In addition, Western Illinois University has an put together this Map of COVID-19 Cases in Illinois & Surrounding States which gives you picture of where COVID-19 cases are occurring in relation to areas surrounding Illinois.
Worldometer also has a site with pertinent statistics on a state by state breakdown and comparison. Also, the City of Chicago has a good categorization of the cases within the city.
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