CHICAGO — The number of coronavirus cases in Chicago are “starting to trend in the right direction,” though much more work needs to be done to curb COVID-19, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Wednesday.
Lightfoot appeared on NBC’s “Today” show, where she discussed discuss the city of Chicago’s response to coronavirus and talk up her “stay home, save lives” PSAs.
“What we’re also seeing is a lengthening of time between the doubling of cases. It’s too soon to make any real predictions but it seems like we’re starting to trend in the right direction. But the truth is, on our modeling, we don’t believe we’re going to reach the peak of this virus until mid to late April,” Lightfoot said, echoing a point she previously made in a Chicago Tribune interview. “So there’s a lot more work that needs to be done. As you know, we’ve taken some fairly drastic steps, canceled a lot of outdoor activities, issued a stay-at-home order, closed our schools. All these things we know are necessary to really save lives and we’ve launched here a local campaign called stay home, save lives, which people are having fun with, which is great.”
The city’s primary focus has been making sure local hospitals can sustain an expected surge in cases, Lightfoot said. She cited the plan to put 3,000 beds in McCormick Place, as well as hotel rooms for first responders and people who need a safe space to quarantine.
Asked about President Donald Trump’s assertion that governors have been “slow to respond,” Lightfoot said, “I will tell you, I don’t pay a lot of attention to the things that come out of the president’s mouth in his daily briefings. Many of them are not based on fact or science and they’re just wildly wrong. That’s wrong in this case.
“If you look at the governors in the states where the virus first hit in this country, those governors, including mine, were very proactive, very aggressive in making sure we were doing everything we could to keep people safe,” Lightfoot said.
She also said she’s “disturbed by the states that still don’t have a universal stay-at-home order.”
“What happens in one state will absolutely have a ripple effect on the rest of the country, so anybody who thinks that they can continue the status quo, not implement aggressive stay-at-home measures, is fooling themselves,” Lightfoot said.
At the end of Lightfoot’s segment, the “Today” show aired a clip from her PSA showing her dunking a basketball on a toy basketball hoop.
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