Don't Buy Gov's Coronavirus Test Promises Until Swab Goes Up Nose

CHICAGO — When Gov. J.B. Pritzker needed a public response to a disturbing statistic — that African Americans account for 40 percent of Illinois' confirmed coronavirus cases even though they make up 15 percent of the state's population — he leaned on a hospital that got $15 million in January from a foundation run by his sister.

Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital didn't have the capacity to complete 400 tests a day starting Monday as the governor promised. The state didn't have swabs to deliver to four community health centers ready to collect test samples.

Pritzker knew it and made the phony promise of amped-up testing anyway.

So far, all Lawndale Christian Health Center got was one of those Abbott Labs coronavirus testing machines, but no swabs to collect samples.

"It's like having a toaster and no bread to toast," said the health center's CEO, Bruce Miller. "I'm not going to criticize anybody. People want to have good news to report before it's a reality."

The reality is that the first time community health center officials discussed the testing plan was the day after Pritzker announced it publicly. On Thursday, a Lurie spokeswoman said the hospital will be able to process only 200 tests a day from the four health centers, but not until the end of next week.

People who heaped praise on Pritzker for appearing to step up to help the black community told me they were crushed to find out that the governor appeared to use them to get positive news coverage.

Why would Pritzker make that kind of promise to people in African American neighborhoods without access to quality health care, anxious to know if they're infected with the deadly virus, when he knew a "supply chain problem" made it impossible?

The governor's spin machine ignored my questions about that. Instead, Pritzker doubled down on the state's alleged ability to conduct "thousands more" COVID-19 tests every day across the state.

On Thursday, the governor announced that the University of Chicago, an institution of high learning that accepted $100 million from the Pritzker Foundation last year, would lead the effort to boost testing on Chicago's South Side and in the south suburbs.

The state's supply chain problem — a sly way of saying the state didn't have testing gear it promised to dole out a week ago — had been "eliminated."

Pritzker spoke as if he never promised black people more testing, and community health centers didn't have to turn them away. He publicly ignored state Rep. La Shawn Ford's outrage that the governor keeps saying the state is "bending the curve" on COVID-19 cases when hundreds of thousands of black people in poor communities aren't being tested.

"I got a call from the [Pritzker] administration," Ford told me. "They said, 'You'll see, everything's going to go smoothly by next week.'"

Then, Ford laughed. If folks on the West Side learned anything about the governor's promise to boost testing, it's that seeing a line of people getting a swab jabbed up their noses is believing.

Ford said he passed on a friendly suggestion to Pritzker.

"The governor needs to apologize to the black community and the [community health centers] for not delivering tests he promised," he said. "It would be a simple thing to do. The right thing to do. Nobody's dying like us."

But the governor didn't take Ford's advice at Thursday's news conference.

Pritzker talked like a boss who answers to no one. He said he multitasked during a conference call with President Donald Trump and bragged that other states copied his stay-at-home order.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," Pritzker said, sounding a lot like the president he blames for his state's shortage of ventilators and protective gear.

His performance rubbed Ford the wrong way.

"As a Democrat, I'm all for J.B. as governor, but he just doesn't seem genuine. He seems like he's enjoying this too much," Ford said. "He's got an answer for everything. Everything's going well. Talk about fake news."

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and Emmy-nominated producer, was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN. He was a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

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