COVID-19 in Illinois updates: Here’s what’s happening Tuesday

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday added Wisconsin, Missouri, North Dakota and Nebraska to the city’s self-quarantine list. People entering the city from those states are asked to self-isolate for 14 days. There are now 22 states on the self-quarantine list.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday appeared with officials in two downstate counties that have seen coronavirus outbreaks. The governor joined local officials in downtown Quincy in Adams County — one of four counties placed on a “warning level” for COVID-19 last week — and hinted the state would take action if infection rates worsen.

Here’s what’s happening Tuesday regarding COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:

Born from the burgeoning real estate market that preceded the Great Recession, flipping homes has become a national fascination over the past two decades. Thrifty bargain hunters scooped up foreclosed or decrepit properties, renovated them and quickly resold for a tidy profit.

The good news for those who have made a career out of the practice: It seems, at least for the time being, that house flipping has proven relatively pandemic-proof.

“My business has been surprisingly unaffected,” said Andy Goldman, whose family has been in the house-flipping business since the 1980s.

In the first three months of 2020, 7.5% of homes sold in the United States were flipped, according to a June report from real estate research firm ATTOM Data Solutions. That’s the highest rate since 2006 and a jump from 6.3% at the end of 2019.

Home flipping rates had dropped drastically in 2007 and began to gradually recover in 2010. The number of flipped homes sold in a quarter peaked around 100,000 in 2005, and while it was on the rise in recent years, a decline began in the second quarter of 2019. In the first quarter of 2020, 53,705 single-family homes and condos were flipped, according to the report.

Still, it’s too soon to fully grasp how the coronavirus pandemic will impact the house flipping market through 2020 and beyond, ATTOM chief product officer Todd Teta said in a statement.

“Profits are down and are lower than they’ve been since the dark days following the Great Recession,” Teta said. “Enter now the coronavirus pandemic, and the prospects for house flipping are notably uncertain, at least in the short term.” Read more here. — Milan Polk

Chicago added Wisconsin and three other states to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 14-day self-quarantine order on Tuesday.

There are now 22 states from which travelers are being told to self-quarantine upon arrival in Chicago due to coronavirus concerns. The requirement covering Wisconsin, Missouri, North Dakota and Nebraska goes into effect on Friday.

Lightfoot’s self-quarantine requirement was first implemented during the Fourth of July weekend but is not being actively enforced aside from signs and billboards telling people that they must self-quarantine.

The order figures to be particularly problematic with Wisconsin, given its proximity and the high number of people from Illinois who spend weekends and vacations there. Many Illinois and Chicago residents, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker, have homes there. Read more here. — Gregory Pratt

The Miami Marlins’ coronavirus outbreak could endanger the Major League Baseball season, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday, although he doesn’t believe games needs to stop now.

More than a dozen Marlins players and staff members tested positive for COVID-19, stranding the team in Philadelphia and raising anew questions about MLB’s attempts to conduct a season.

“This could put it in danger,” said Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. “I don’t believe they need to stop, but we just need to follow this and see what happens with other teams on a day-by-day basis.”

Fauci made his comments on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Read more here. — The Associated Press

A week after appearing to project a more serious tone about the coronavirus, President Donald Trump is back to pushing unproven claims that an anti-malaria drug is an effective treatment and challenging the credibility of the nation’s leading infectious disease expert.

Overnight, after returning from a trip to North Carolina where he promoted efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, Trump retweeted a series of tweets advocating for hydroxychloroquine.

YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have begun scrubbing the video from their platforms, saying it makes demonstrably false claims about the pandemic. The tweet the president amplified is, as of Tuesday morning, not visible on the platform but still atop his feed.

The video, published by Breitbart News, features a group of people wearing white lab coats calling themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors,” according to CNN. In front of the Supreme Court, they maintain the drug can cure the disease caused by coronavirus — a claim which is contradicted by medical science. The speaker says masks are unnecessary and alleges a conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies.

The video went hugely viral on Facebook, with over 14 million views before it was removed Monday night for promoting misinformation, CNN reported. Read more here. — The Associated Press

Business did improve for McDonald’s throughout the second quarter as restrictions lifted across the globe, but the fast food giant faces a bumpy — and expensive — recovery.

Of the chain’s 39,000 restaurants worldwide, 96% are now open, compared with 75% at the start of the second quarter. Comparable-store sales that were down 39% in April were down only 12% by June.

Last week, McDonald’s said it will delay dining room reopenings for at least another month and will require face masks for anyone entering its restaurants.

McDonald’s is also spending heavily to convince people to come back, particularly for breakfast. The Chicago company spent more than $200 million to support franchisee marketing during the second quarter. It also paid $31 million to distribution centers — payments normally made by franchisees — and $45 million to cover franchisees’ debts. Read more here. — The Associated Press

A food distribution event at a Gresham neighborhood grocery store midday Tuesday will include the giveaway of 5,000 Ventra cards and healthy travel kits, according to the mayor’s office.

The food distribution at the parking lot of the Save-A-Lot grocery store, 7908 S. Halsted St., is sponsored by the city’s Racial Equity Rapid Response Team, which Chicago officials set up to work to address racial inequities made more apparent by the high rates of COVID-19 in communities of color.

The food distribution event was scheduled to run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, according to a release from the mayor’s office.

The CTA Ventra card giveaway is sponsored by Butcher Boy Cooking Oils, a Chicago-area business, according to the release. — Chicago Tribune staff

After spending months keeping her 6-year-old daughter occupied with nature hikes, scavenger hunts and virtual play dates, Julia Devetski was hoping she could finally return to work full time again once the energetic rising first grader was back in the classroom this fall at her school in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood.

But as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage — and after learning that her daughter and her Chicago Public Schools classmates will be doing remote learning at home at least part of the time when the new school year starts in September — Devetski joined the soaring ranks of parents who are counting on “pandemic pods” or “micro-schools” as a solution to their dilemma.

Equal parts traditional home schooling and Mary Poppins-style nurturing — with a COVID-19 sheltering-in-place twist — these new arrangements are beckoning parents who desperately need support as they juggle working from home with keeping tabs on their kids’ education.

Generally, the idea of pandemic pods, sometimes called micro-schools, Safe Centers for Online Learning or SCOLs, is to supplement or oversee remote learning, rather that replace it, for parents who have the resources.

The cry for help, which includes legions of parents daunted by the prospect of their kids returning to school and potentially catching the virus, has also spawned a burgeoning network of providers ranging from posh private tutoring centers to retired public school teachers and recent college grads, all of whom are offering to organize and supervise in-home instruction for groups of roughly three to five children. Read more here. — Karen Ann Cullotta

Here are five things that happened Monday regarding COVID-19.