THE ILLINOIZE: Wednesday Free for All
Good morning readers.
Enjoy the mild weather while it lasts. I wish I could get a nickel for every person who will say something like, “that’s Illinois weather for you. If you don’t like it, wait a minute”. I’ve lived in four states and everyone says that where they live (except if you live in Hawaii, I bet).
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Let’s get to it.
YOUR WEDNESDAY FREE FOR ALL
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Hospitalizations continue to rise because of the unvaccinated, state health official say (Daily Herald)
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Illinois are back above 3,500 for the first time in 11 months, and health officials are placing the blame largely on the unvaccinated.
Advocate Aurora Health officials Monday announced the system with 26 hospitals in Illinois and Wisconsin has seen COVID-19 hospitalizations increase by more than 100% over the past month.
The health care group sampled 430 COVID-19 patients two weeks ago and determined 74% of those patients were unvaccinated, 18% were partially vaccinated or due for a booster, and 8% were fully vaccinated.
"I think the data we have provided is a compelling argument not only to get vaccinated but to get boosted," said Dr. Robert Citronberg, executive medical director of infectious disease and prevention at Advocate Aurora Health. "What we want to get across is this question of, can you get COVID if you've been vaccinated and boosted? Yes. But your chances of getting severely ill or dying from it are extremely low."
In ICUs throughout the system, the percentage of patients who are unvaccinated is closer to 90%, said Dr. Raul Mendoza, a pulmonologist in Wisconsin.
"And that's the same trend nationwide," he said.
Related: COVID-19 in the Quad-Cities, by the numbers (Quad Cities Times)
COVID-19 in Southern Illinois: Deaths reported in Franklin, Hamilton, Jackson, Massac, Perry, Pulaski, Randolph, Saline, Union and Williamson Counties on Monday (The Southern Illinoisan)
Good pension news doesn’t alleviate underlying financial pressures, new report states (Capitol News Illinois)
The state saw its unfunded pension liability decrease in fiscal year 2021 for the first time in four years, due in large part to investment returns exceeding 20 percent, according to a new report from the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.
Measuring by the current-day values of the pension fund assets, unfunded liabilities – or the amount of debt the state pension funds owe that they can’t afford to pay – dropped by nearly 10 percent, to $130 billion in FY 2021 from $144 billion in the previous fiscal year. That put the state’s five pension funds at 46.5 percent funded, up from 39 percent the previous year.
It’s the best funding ratio since 2008 and only the third decrease to unfunded liabilities in the last 15 years, the last occurring in FY 2017 at 0.5 percent, the other in FY 2011 at 2.9 percent. Otherwise, unfunded liabilities have risen annually from $42.2 billion in 2007.
But the report also noted that not much has changed to alleviate the underlying financial pressures that have caused unfunded liabilities to triple since the financial crisis of 2007-2008, meaning the good financial news was more anomaly than trend.
President Pritzker? Gov not eyeing White House bid - yet (Chicago Sun Times)
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s team says the first-term governor has no interest in “DC’s favorite parlor game,” a political tournament that tries to pick who may run for president.
Democratic consultants interviewed Monday said that’s probably for the best. They offered mixed reactions to Pritzker’s name being floated as a potential presidential contender, varying from he — and any other governor — would be a “fool” not to think about it, to warnings against looking too far ahead of his own 2022 reelection fight.
“Anyone who looks over the horizon is in danger of tripping over their feet because they’re missing what’s right in front of them,” said one longtime strategist, who like others interviewed by the Sun-Times, would only speak on the condition their names not be used.
Pritzker’s name popped up in a Sunday political story in the New York Times that laid out options for a potential “plan B” presidential candidate as Democrats look ahead to 2024.
That planning has been brought on by declining poll numbers for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Mental health is at a crisis level for children, youth in Southern Illinois (The Southern Illinoisan)
Southern Illinois is seeing the effects of the national youth mental health crisis.
“We are at capacity,” Zachary Schumacher, a counselor at Centerstone in Carterville, said. “We’ve been seeing so many youth.”
On Dec. 7, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a new advisory to highlight the urgent need to address the nation’s crisis.
“The Surgeon General’s advisory calls for a swift and coordinated response to this crisis as the nation continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides recommendations that individuals, families, community organizations, technology companies, governments, and others can take to improve the mental health of children, adolescents and young adults,” according to a release on the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' website.
Schumacher said a lot of youth use social media, like Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram. Studies increasingly show how these phone apps have the most detrimental effects on children.
Former state Rep. Eddie Acevedo pleads guilty to tax charge stemming from ComEd probe (Chicago Tribune)
Former Democratic state Rep. Eddie Acevedo pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal tax charge stemming from the ongoing federal probe into Commonwealth Edison’s lobbying practices.
Acevedo, 58, entered his plea to one count of tax evasion during a hearing via videoconference before U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly. Preliminary sentencing guidelines call for up to a year in prison when he’s sentenced March 9, though Acevedo could qualify for probation.
The plea scuttles a jury trial that had been set for Jan. 10.
Acevedo became the latest to be convicted as part of a wide-ranging investigation involving an alleged scheme by ComEd to bribe former House Speaker Michael Madigan to assist the utility with legislation it wanted in Springfield.
Acevedo previously told the Tribune he’d been interviewed by federal investigators as part of that probe.
The relatively minor charges he was indicted on, however, made no mention of the ComEd bribery or Madigan. His plea agreement reached with prosecutors on Tuesday also does not contain any deal to cooperate in the ComEd investigation.
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