Coronavirus spread slowing, but that could change if you don’t stay home, governor says
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday that data shows transmission of the coronavirus is slowing down.
“We are, in fact, bending the curve,” the governor said during his daily briefing in Chicago on the COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
Pritzker said the rate at which the number of COVID-19 patients, hospitalizations or deaths is doubling has changed since bars, restaurants and schools closed and since the stay-at-home order kept most people inside.
The number of patients was doubling every two days as of March 22. On April 12, the rate slowed to about every eight days.
“The higher that number is, the slower your growth, which means the flatter your curve,” Pritzker said.
“... Folks, this curve may not flatten, and it may go up again” if people don’t follow the order to stay home, he added.
Pritzker said his administration is working on a plan for a “way of life to carry us to the other side,” but noted that day is not here yet. He has also been talking to other governors on the East Coast and in the Midwest about when they think measures like stay-at-home orders can be rolled back.
Pritzker said those decisions will be “dependent on what we hear from the epidemiologists and the doctors.”
“There is no one who wants our state to open up more than I do,” he said. “... What we have to do is to design a new normal.”
‘People are getting better’
Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said the state has received more responses to a survey to COVID-19 patients asking if they had recovered from the disease.
These are the latest results:
- 44% said they were recovered seven days after their diagnosis.
- 50% said they were recovered 14 days after their diagnosis.
- 61% said they were recovered at 21 days after their diagnosis.
- 69% said they were recovered at 28 days after their diagnosis.
Ezike said 23 state employees were making 300 calls a day to people who didn’t response to the survey, and about half of those calls resulted in a “successful interview” about how they were feeling.
“People are getting better,” Ezike said. “People recover from this disease.”
This story was originally published April 14, 2020 at 3:59 PM.
