Pritzker reflects on three years of pandemic as disaster declarations
are set to end
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[May 11, 2023]
By PETER HANCOCK
Capitol News Illinois
phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – In the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. JB
Pritzker recalls being handed a report from researchers at the
University of Illinois.
The analysis was written by scientists and mathematicians who were
trying to estimate how many deaths and hospitalizations would occur
under different scenarios – one if the state took no action; another if
it imposed only moderate mitigation measures; and yet another if it
imposed significant measures such as a stay-at-home order.
“And without any mitigations, their projection was, just in the Chicago
area alone, we would see 40,000 deaths in approximately four months,”
Pritzker recalled in an interview this week.
He said he still keeps a copy of that report in his office.
On March 9, 2020, Pritzker issued his first statewide disaster
declaration related to COVID-19, a declaration he would go on to renew
every 30 days for more than three years. In the following days, he would
issue executive orders closing schools to in-person attendance, then
closing bars and restaurants and, eventually, a general stay-at-home
order that would shutter all “nonessential” businesses for months to
come.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Sep/05/images/ads/current/stclara_lda_SPONSOR_090519.png)
“We were advised by the Department of Homeland Security that there were
certain kinds of businesses that should be deemed ‘essential,’ and the
Department of Homeland Security had a list that they had put together
for these sorts of emergencies,” Pritzker said. “And so that was what we
used and what virtually every state used to determine what should stay
open and how to keep people safe.”
Now, more than three years after he issued that first disaster
declaration, the last of his pandemic-era executive orders are set to
expire. Pritzker announced in January that Illinois’ disaster
declaration would end on May 11, the same day chosen by the Biden
Administration to end the federal COVID disaster declaration that also
dates back to early 2020.
From a practical standpoint, most people won’t notice the end of the
disaster declaration on Thursday because the state pandemic-related
orders that most directly affected their daily lives – school closures,
mask mandates, limits on public gatherings – have long since expired.
But for some, it will mean the end of certain federally funded benefits.
“There are no restrictions,” Pritzker said. “Why was there a disaster
declaration? Because in order for us to receive the federal benefits
that were being offered to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program) recipients, who are the poorest people in our state, people who
needed Medicaid, who are the poorest people in our state, you needed to
match up your disaster declaration and executive orders with the federal
government's executive orders and disaster declaration. So we did that.”
Pritzker said some people will receive less aid through SNAP and some
Medicaid recipients could lose their eligibility, but he said those
changes will not have a significant impact on the state budget.
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The end of the disaster declaration will also mean that as of Thursday,
testing and many of the treatments for COVID-19 will no longer be free,
although Pritzker said they will be covered by insurance.
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![](../images/051123PIX/news_b1.jpg)
Gov. JB Pritzker is pictured in an
Illinois-themed mask during a COVID-19 news conference in
Springfield in 2021. He spoke to Capitol News Illinois this week
about the upcoming end to the COVID-19 disaster declaration that has
been in place for more than three years. (Capitol News Illinois
photo by Jerry Nowicki)
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/May/11/images/ads/current/atlantabank_lda_SFARM_2023.png)
Looking back over the last three years, though, Pritzker reflected on
what it was like during the initial weeks and months of the pandemic
when scientists and public health officials all over the world were
still trying to understand this novel virus.
“We didn't know much about COVID-19, or even how it was spread,” he
said. “Remember early on, there was some belief that it could be spread
on surfaces. And so people were wearing gloves to open their packages
and things like that.
“So there wasn't a lot of information. What we knew was that the most
effective way to keep people safe in the early moments of this would be
for people to keep some social distance.”
Over the course of the next several months, Pritzker held daily news
conferences – usually accompanied by his public health director at the
time, Dr. Ngozi Ezike – to relay the most recent information, announce
new mitigation orders and provide the latest statistics on infection
rates, hospitalizations and deaths.
“Remember, communication to the public was vitally important when the
federal government was providing very little,” Pritzker said. “And so
that's the reason why I was at that podium every day, for months
straight. It was because people needed to know what the latest
information was.”
By summer 2020, the state began to gradually roll back many of the
mitigation orders on a region-by-region basis and by the end of the
year, the first vaccines became publicly available.
Throughout 2021, new variants of the virus would emerge, leading to
temporary spikes in COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths. But as the
vaccines became more widely distributed, the death and hospitalization
rates started falling steadily, and in 2022 Pritzker began phasing out
many of mitigation orders that had been in place.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/May/11/images/ads/current/businessdirectory_dailycover_2023.png)
Pritzker maintains that as a result of those measures, Illinois avoided
the direst predictions of the mathematicians and scientists at the
University of Illinois. According to the Illinois Department of Public
Health, as of April 30, the entire state of Illinois has seen 36,850
confirmed COVID-19 deaths, and another 5,155 “probable” disease-related
deaths.
“But if one were to look at how Illinois handled the pandemic – and this
is kudos and gratitude to the people of Illinois – people did the right
thing,” Pritzker said. “And the vast majority of people in Illinois
understood what they needed to do. They heard what they needed to do
from the experts, and they did it. And the result of that is, to the
extent one can use the word ‘success’ here, the result is that we had
real success here at keeping people safe and alive.”
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news
service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of
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Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along
with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and
Southern Illinois Editorial Association. |