Why Must We Pretend Pritzker Pandemic Metrics Aren't Meaningless?

CHICAGO — Over the long weekend, the "science based" metrics guiding Gov. J.B. Pritzker's pandemic policy aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus suddenly changed.

Science, of course, had nothing to do with it.

Facing pressure from folks calling out the state's "garbage" coronavirus metrics, the Pritzker administration sent out a statement Monday announcing the elimination of one of the three statistical benchmarks established by state bureaucrats — the percentage of non-surgical hospital bed vacancies.

In an instant, state-mandated social distance restrictions got rolled back in regions across the state, including Chicago and suburban Cook County.

On Tuesday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot thanked Pritzker for his "leadership" in changing the metrics that on Friday he insisted were the non-negotiable, science-based and doctor-recommended statistics that must be met before he eased social distance lockdowns.

I couldn't tell if Lightfoot was kidding, but her comment made me laugh anyway.

A leader would admit when he's wrong and make changes to right the course — in this case, ditching the flawed tiered mitigations altogether and allowing businesses to slowly and safely open with limited capacity and social distance restrictions while rushing to get vaccines into the arms of Illinoisans.

Pritzker didn't lead. He got shoved.

The governor consistently balked at considering policy changes until faced with the prospect of a revolt from Chicago's restaurant industry — and possibly the mayor, who said she supports their cause to reopen.

After 10 months of lockdowns that didn't spare Illinois from a second COVID-19 spike, the coronavirus crisis became more than a public health emergency. The governor's coronavirus policies have crippled small businesses, particularly the restaurant industry, which has endured two bans on indoor dining.

Pritzker could have shown himself to be a leader by engaging with industry leaders, pushing for adequate contact tracing data and using a wide range of data to develop pandemic policies that balanced the needs to save businesses and lives. It might have helped him realize sooner that those benchmarks he set early in the pandemic for determining the rate of virus transmission in regions didn't end up being statistics to drive public policy.

Because that's exactly what experts are saying. Harvard associate professor William Hanage, for instance, told New York Magazine test positivity statistics alone are "almost meaningless."

Since the World Health Organization recommended in May that a 5 percent test positivity rate should be the benchmark for easing pandemic lockdowns, "there have always been these statements about the percent positivity. … And really, it’s just a sort of post-traumatic stress disorder, focusing back on the early stages of the pandemic," Hanage told New York Magazine.

The COVID Tracking Project doesn't publish positivity rates. In an October blog post, its team of experts "emphatically recommend against over-reliance on test positivity calculations to justify changes in public health responses or policies."

Yet, in Illinois, the prevailing measurement of COVID-19 spread remains test positivity rates, despite the lack of adequate random testing or a suitable level of contact tracing to identify hot spots for community spread and quickly quarantine people who might have been exposed to the virus.

And the state public health department's news release Monday, without mentioning Pritzker's name, announced hospital bed occupancy would no longer be a measure of coronavirus risk.

The governor who gave televised coronavirus updates 155 times in 2020 didn't bother to take credit for, or take any questions about, the sudden major shift in pandemic policy that allowed businesses to reopen across the state.

Maybe Pritzker didn't want to get asked: Why does your public health department insist "the remaining metrics will appropriately monitor capacity and spread" when there's so much science and data that says that's not necessarily true?

So, in the governor's stead, I asked Roger Romanelli, coordinator for the Chicago Restaurant Coalition, for his take on Pritzker erasing one of his mitigations benchmarks.

"It truly underscores how the governor's rules have been arbitrarily decided," Romanelli said.

"They're using these arbitrary, unproven metrics and rules. And who's suffering? Restaurants that are being blamed and punished without any evidence [they're the cause of outbreaks]. It shows a fundamental disconnect between the governor's office and small businesses. … The governor has been all over the map on this. We're all trying to solve the crisis. But when your rules have been unfair, you just need to admit it and change them immediately. And they're unfair."

To be fair to Pritzker, admitting mistakes is not his way.

To anyone paying attention, it makes total sense the governor clings to meaningless positivity rates and statistical benchmarks established by state bureaucrats, rather than risk being found out that politics filters the "science and data" guiding his decisions.

In Chicago's case, we're actually supposed to believe that science says it's safer to serve up sandwiches in a mostly empty café after the city's rolling seven-day test positivity rate dips from the current 8.1 percent to 8 percent, the governor's benchmark to qualify for the lowest social distance restrictions.

So far, that's the only choice we have.

Mayor Lightfoot's administration keeps playing along with the state's mitigation playbook, probably to avoid a public feud with a fellow Democrat. After all, there's no way to score a political victory. And it'll be Pritzker who ultimately takes the blame when it eventually becomes clear his economically devastating business shutdowns flattened the curve on a second coronavirus surge about as well as states that implemented fewer restrictions.

On Tuesday, pandemic politics were on full display as Pritzker avoided the public eye and Lightfoot's public health commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady did her best to keep up appearances.

Arwady said the city is ready to cautiously move ahead with reopening businesses shuttered by the state's lockdown. During a livestream coronavirus update, she offered restaurateurs hope, saying that in a few days, or sometime next week, they'll be able to sit tables of four up to 25 percent occupancy.

The only thing still standing in the way, she said, was meeting the remaining coronavirus metrics that guide Pritzker's pandemic mitigations.

It was impossible not to notice that Arwady — who's known for talking fast, eloquently and with authority about all things COVID-19 — couldn't quite explain that situation while keeping a straight face.

"We have committed to particular metrics around reopening," she said. "And I do feel strongly that, that those have been set based on, um, you know, based on our, eh, eh, based on what we know about risk related to science."

Pritzker couldn't have said it better himself.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

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