THE SHUTDOWN THEATER GOES ON AND ON AND ON AND ON IN ILLINOIS.

Illinois has long been the canonical example of failures of the blue social model, and, not surprisingly, its governor, J. B. Pritzker (D-Chicago) is one of the rogues gallery of micromanagers who are treating their citizens much like the Addams Family treated its Lionel set.

He's been getting push-back, particularly from people outside Chicago.  A legislator from the southern counties filed a suit, alleging the stay at home order was limiting his ability to work with his constituents.  I'm not sure what the status of that litigation currently is.  A few days later, another legislator, this time from the northern counties, filed a similar suit, but this one noted the arbitrariness of defining essential businesses, in that traditional clothing stores had to close, but general purpose stores with grocery departments, could remain open.  In Illinois, at least, people could browse the clothing and toy departments at the likes of Target and Wal-Mart, those weren't roped off by executive order like we saw to our east.  Again, I'm not sure what the status of that litigation is.  About the same time, a church in Lena, on the North West Frontier, brought suit arguing that the continued closure of churches was an abridgement of the freedom to worship.  A subsequent modification of the ukase allowed worship services to resume, although in person gatherings could not exceed ten people.

"Religious organizations and houses of worship are encouraged to use online or drive-in services to protect the health and safety of their congregants," the order reads.

This puts religious services in the same classification under the order as activities like going to work at an essential business, partaking in outdoor activity or exercise, taking care of loved ones and grocery shopping or obtaining necessary supplies.

Church services of long duration with a lot of group singing and call-and-response prayer do run the risk of exposure in a way that relatively quick stops at the grocery store do not. In addition,

The study authors noted that religious participation may serve as an important antidote to despair and an asset for sustaining a sense of hope and meaning. They also wrote that religion may be associated with strengthened psychosocial resilience by fostering a sense of peace and positive outlook, and promoting social connectedness.

“These results are perhaps especially striking amidst the present COVID-19 pandemic,” said Ying Chen, research associate and data scientist at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and first author of the paper. “They are striking in part because clinicians are facing such extreme work demands and difficult conditions, and in part because many religious services have been suspended. We need to think what might be done to extend help to those at risk for despair.”

That's right, that's a Harvard study. As in the place that put one Barack Obama on the fast track to the presidency.

At the same time that the governor was allowing some worship to take place, he pushed back on the legislative lawsuits, suggesting that there were emerging hot spots downstate, posing a possible risk to the hospital capacity in those areas.  And yet, the emergency capacity that your tax dollars provided at McCormick Place is being "deconstructed" ... but no word on it being stored, or strategically positioned at Springfield or Rockford or somewhere to be quickly moved to those hot spots.  The governor noted that it was placed in Chicago "out of an abundance of caution" and it served twenty-nine patients.  Just don't get any ideas, downstate, about exercising your own caution.

Slowly, though, the governor is catching on that you deal with outbreaks differently in different parts of the state.  On Wednesday, the latest revision of the ukases offered a common plan for easing the confinement to quarters, but it could be applied differently on a regional basis.  (Kane and DuPage counties, immediately west of Cook County, i.e. Chicago, immediately requested to be moved to a different region.  Developing, as they say.)  "The final phase of Pritzker’s plan, when conventions, festivals and sporting events resume, won’t kick in until there’s a vaccine, treatment or widespread immunity to COVID-19."  Pro tip: what is the effect of heterogeneous susceptibility on the threshold exposure leading to immunity?  I would be delighted if somebody at one of these briefings, whether at the county, state, or federal level, would ask that question.

With or without the applied mathematics, the latest ukase is too much for the editorial board at Chicago's Tribune.

By April, most of us understood that flattening the curve of infection would extend the peak of new cases to May. But that would mean success because the sick would be treated, hospitals wouldn’t be overrun and health care workers would be better protected. It’s why we, and many others, advocated repeatedly for Illinoisans to say home and local officials to contain their impatience.

In short, flattening the curve, then, did not mean eliminating the coronavirus.

Just this month, state and city officials decided they could pare back the field hospital built at McCormick Place. At no point so far has Illinois run out of ventilators. As of Sunday, the Chicago area had 64% of ventilators and 18.6% of ICU beds available. Again, this is success.

The failure Illinois shares with many other hard-hit states is its failure to protect the rest homes.

The national media have paid copious amounts of attention to the risk of spreading the coronavirus in places like the beaches of Florida and the reopening of businesses in Georgia. A refocus of the national media’s attention and criticism upon the nursing homes in states like California, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York is long overdue. A lot of people have relished accusing the anti-lockdown protesters of “killing grandma.” It is time we took a more serious look at what lawmakers’ decisions led most directly to the deaths of so many grandmothers and grandfathers.

Team Tribune are not yet there, but they're losing patience.

We have preached patience and we support the stay-at-home order’s extension to May 30. To relax the state’s posture too quickly could invite a second wave of infections. Pritzker must not lose this war. But what the governor also needs to keep in mind is how to define victory: containing the coronavirus. We don’t want his pursuit of the perfect outcome to unnecessarily delay the restarting of activities.

They're also rediscovering what "consent of the governed" means.

On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers pushed back against Pritzker’s latest five-phase plan. The governor also faces court challenges for stretching his executive authority too far. Similar legal challenges are unfolding in other states. Those challenges are not based in blind ideology. They are not cheap political stunts, as Pritzker characterized them.

They are rising from a legitimate question of how far one-man authority due to an “emergency” can go. Can we say today what will constitute “emergency” in three weeks? Even two? No. The evolving nature of this virus means we all have to be flexible, and keep the focus on what’s attainable. That includes Gov. Pritzker.

Exactly. Emergency orders are limited in scope and duration as a matter of law and republican principles. If the emergency is of long duration, think a world war or a blight that wipes out all the grain, the legislative bodies and the courts have enumerated powers in crafting a longer-lasting response.