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By John Bachtell
CHICAGO –Despite increasingly frantic pressure from Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and other governors, Trump refuses to use the Defense Production Act (PDA) to acquire tens of millions of testing kits, N95 masks, ventilators, and other vital medical supplies. Pritzker has repeatedly criticized Trump for not leading a “singular, national, robust” response to the accelerating coronavirus pandemic.
Illinois reports over 1,500 coronavirus cases and 16 deaths as of March 24. Unemployment claims jumped ten times over claims reported three days earlier.
Illinois, like other states, has acted on its own in the absence of clear guidance from the White House. Images of nurses at New York City’s Elmhurst Hospital wearing plastic garbage bags to protect themselves have gone out on national television. One health care worker at that institution, which is at 125 percent capacity, is already dead from the inability to protect themselves.
In Illinois, Pritzker issued a state of emergency on March 9 and shelter-at-home order March 20 in response to the pandemic....
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