Baseball by the numbers: MLB again seeing lots of strikeouts and home runs, low averages.

The way baseball is played today, the White Sox are almost an anomaly.

Stringing together enough hits to produce runs has become more difficult in an age of hard-throwing pitchers and defensive shifts. Rosters have been constructed to favor home-run hitters and quick-strike offenses.

With the caution that April is always tough on hitters, we’ve seen a continuation of the trends toward fewer balls in play and offenses dominated by the three true outcomes of strikeouts, walks and homers.

Yet the Sox, who rank fourth in the majors at 4.96 runs per game (through Sunday), are 26th with 24 homers, eight fewer than the major-league average. Their 236 strikeouts represent 23.3% of their plate appearances, lower than the major-league average of 24.4%.

The Sox’ .257 batting average ranks third and is 23 points above the major-league average of .234. Augmented by 101 walks — 10.1% of their plate appearances — the Sox have a .340 on-base percentage that trails only the Dodgers’ .346.

The Cubs are more in line with trends. They’re hitting for a low average (.224, 10 points below the major-league average), striking out (282 times for 26.9% of their plate appearances, sixth in the majors), walking (104 times for 9.9% of their plate appearances) and hitting homers (37 for 3.5% of their plate appearances vs. the major-league average of 3.1). Their 4.61 runs per game are 14th in the majors but .28 above average.

Let’s take a look at major-league averages:

• Strikeouts: In 2020, strikeouts per game dropped after 14 consecutive seasons of year-to-year increases.

But strikeouts weren’t really down. That was just a statistical oddity created by shorter games with seven-inning doubleheaders and extra innings shortened by the man-on-second rule.

Strikeouts per game fell from a record 8.81 per team in 2019 to 8.68 in 2020, but strikeouts increased to 23.4% of plate appearances in 2020 after 23% in 2019. The long-term rise in strikeouts continued, masked by shorter games.

Through Sunday, teams are striking out an average of 9.05 times per game, a record pace if it continues.

• Walks: Bases on balls are down to 3.29 per team per game after 3.39 last season, which was up from 3.27 in 2019. Walks crested with an expansion-era high of 3.75 in 2000 but settled down to a recent low of 2.88 in 2014.

• Home runs: At 1.16 per team per game, homers are down from 1.28 last season and a record 1.39 in 2019, but they’re still at the fifth-highest level in history. Expect a power increase in warmer weather.

• Batting average: The current .234 average would be the lowest in history, even below the .237 in the Year of the Pitcher in 1968. That’s down from .245 in 2020, the lowest since .244 in 1972.

Roster construction plays a part in the trends. If execs thought the best way to score was to have contact hitters spray the ball, you’d see prospects with thick-handled, thick-barreled bats learning to hit to the opposite field. But power is what puts runs on the board these days, and more homers, more strikeouts and lower batting averages are what you get.

Read More

The Microsoft co-founder and his wife, who launched the world’s largest charitable foundation, said they would continue to work together at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

SEATTLE — Bill and Melinda Gates said Monday that they are divorcing but would keep working together at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest charitable foundations in the world.

In identical tweets, the Microsoft co-founder and his wife said they had made the decision to end their marriage of 27 years.

“We have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives,” they said in a statement. “We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.”

Bill Gates was formerly the world’s richest person and his fortune is estimated at well over $100 billion. How the couple end up settling their estate and any impact on the foundation will be closely watched, especially after another high-profile Seattle-area billionaire couple recently ended their marriage.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos finalized their divorce in 2019. MacKenzie Scott has since remarried and now focuses on her own philanthropy after receiving a 4% stake in Amazon, worth more than $36 billion.

The Gateses were married in 1994 in Hawaii. They met after she began working at Microsoft as a product manager in 1987.

In her 2019 memoir, “The Moment of Lift,” Melinda Gates wrote about her childhood, life and private struggles as the wife of a public icon and stay-at-home mom with three kids. She won Bill Gates’ heart after meeting at a work dinner, sharing a mutual love of puzzles and beating him at a math game.

She also detailed the ways they navigated imbalances in their marriage and parenting journey and noted how working together at the foundation made their relationship better.

“Bill and I are equal partners,” Melinda Gates said in a 2019 interview with The Associated Press. “Men and women should be equal at work.”

The Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the most influential private foundation in the world, with an endowment worth nearly $50 billion. It has focused on global health and development and U.S. education issues since incorporating in 2000.

While both are global figures, Melinda Gates has increasingly built her profile as a champion of women and girls. The former tech business executive launched her private Pivotal Ventures investment and incubation company in 2015 and recently partnered with Scott for a newly announced equity challenge.

David Callahan, founder of the Insider Philanthropy website and author of “The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age” says it’s too early to know how the divorce will affect the Gates foundation and the wider philanthropic community.

Although the couple say they will continue to work together at their foundation, Callahan suggests Melinda Gates could still pursue her own philanthropic work.

“You can imagine two separate tracks where they’re both working together at the foundation, and each is pursuing their own independent philanthropy outside the foundation,” Callahan said.

He said the possibility of Melinda Gates opening another philanthropic foundation would have a dramatic impact.

“Nobody knows what the terms are of their divorce agreement. But if Melinda Gates ends up with just some portion of that wealth and turns to creating her own foundation, it would be among one of the biggest foundations probably in America,” Callahan said.

As the public face of the foundation’s COVID-19 grants and advocacy work, Bill Gates has come under fire for being a staunch supporter of intellectual property rights for vaccine makers. While the tech icon says protecting the shots’ recipes will ensure incentives for research and development, critics claim that mentality hampers supply in favor of drug company profits.

Last year, Bill Gates said he was stepping down from Microsoft’s board to focus on philanthropy.

He was Microsoft’s CEO until 2000 and since then has gradually scaled back his involvement in the company he started with Paul Allen in 1975. He transitioned out of a day-to-day role in Microsoft in 2008 and served as chairman of the board until 2014.

___

Associated Press reporter Haleluya Hadero contributed from New York. Follow Sally Ho at https://twitter.com/_sallyho.

Read More

More than 40,000 ShotSpotter alerts prompted no formal reports of any crime over a 21-month stretch — amounting to an average of 61 unfounded deployments each day.

An analysis of the city’s gunshot detection system released Monday found that nearly 86% of police deployments to alerts of gunfire prompted no formal reports of any crime.

The research, conducted by the MacArthur Justice Center at the Northwestern University School of Law, shows there were more that 40,000 “dead-end deployments” to gunshot alerts recorded between July 2019 and mid-April — an average of 61 each day.

Just 10% of the alerts over that period sent officers on calls that likely involved guns, the researchers found after analyzing records kept by the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

ShotSpotter, the publicly traded company that provides its acoustic gunshot detection technology to Chicago and 110 other cities across the country, claims its system is a “highly effective technology” that’s 97% accurate. During a news conference Monday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot called ShotSpotter “an incredibly important tool in our crime-fighting arsenal” and questioned whether the new research is “actually accurate.”

Meanwhile, activists continue to raise concerns about ShotSpotter’s ability to distinguish between gunfire and other loud noises like fireworks. In addition, alarms are being sounded over the technology’s potential to increase the number of highly charged law enforcement interactions in police districts with large minority populations.

“It sends police racing into communities searching, often in vain, for gunfire,” said Jessey Neves, a spokeswoman for the MacArthur Justice Center. “Any resident in the area will be a target of police suspicion or worse. These volatile deployments can go wrong in an instant.”

Lissa Druss, a spokeswoman for ShotSpotter, defended the technology but acknowledged that the company hasn’t reviewed the findings of the new study.

“ShotSpotter technology is incredibly accurate, alerting officers to the exact location of gunfire incidents in less than 60 seconds, finding victims who need assistance, getting them medical aid faster [and] saving lives,” Druss said.

The Chicago Police Department’s relationship with ShotSpotter began in 2012 when the technology was implemented to cover a small portion of the city. That reach expanded to over 100 square miles when the department entered into a new $33 million contract in 2018, at which point ShotSpotter described the city as its “largest customer.”

With the current contract set to expire in August, Lightfoot said CPD officials have continued to evaluate the arrangement to ensure the city is “getting the best bang for our buck.”

The mayor told reporters that ShotSpotter is a “life-saver” when paired with other technology at the CPD’s Strategic Decision Support Centers, crediting the combination with helping raise this year’s homicide clearance rate.

“In an environment where people are fearful sometimes of calling 911 for a variety of reasons, ShotSpotter allows us to understand that … those challenges exist that are out there,” she said. “So where the calls for service don’t come, we still are able to respond.”

The Police Department’s use of the gunshot detection technology has drawn increased attention after the death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, who was fatally shot by an officer responding to ShotSpotter alerts in late March. Freddy Martinez, executive director of the transparency nonprofit Lucy Parsons Labs, penned an op-ed last week in South Side Weekly calling for an end to the city’s deal with ShotSpotter in the wake of his killing.

“We must work to abolish the use of surveillance technologies to bring justice for Adam Toledo and others like him,” Martinez wrote.

On Monday morning, Martinez’s group and two other nonprofits filed an amicus brief in a pending murder case in Cook County court that relies on ShotSpotter evidence. The MacArthur Justice Center is representing the organizations behind the filing, which draws on the new findings about ShotSpotter.

The defendant, 64-year-old Michael Williams, has pleaded not guilty to six counts of murder stemming from a fatal shooting on the South Side that happened amid a wave of looting late last May. Williams, who was denied bail, already filed a motion April 22 to exclude the ShotSpotter evidence, court records show.

Spokespeople for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office declined to comment on the pending case. So did officials in the Cook County public defender’s office, which is handling Williams’ defense.

Monday’s filing piggybacks on Williams’ motion and urges the court to scrutinize ShotSpotter’s reliability given that the technology has “far-reaching consequences beyond this single case.” They note that other cities have dropped ShotSpotter “because the system sent their officers out on too many wild goose chases.”

Citing the technology’s “significant, cross-cutting consequences for the legal rights of Chicagoans” and the lack of any “meaningful judicial scrutiny” in Illinois, the groups asked the court “to take seriously its duty to investigate and ascertain the reliability of reports of gunfire that ShotSpotter generates.”

Read More

More than 200,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have gone to waste since December. The two pharmacy chains account for most of it, a Kaiser Health News investigation found.

CVS and Walgreens — two national pharmacy chains that the federal government entrusted to inoculate people against COVID-19 — together account for the lion’s share of vaccine doses that have gone to waste.

That’s according to federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data obtained by KHN that shows the agency recorded 182,874 wasted doses as of late March, three months into the country’s effort to vaccinate the masses against the coronavirus.

Of those, CVS was responsible for nearly half and Walgreens for 21% — a combined total of nearly 128,500 wasted shots.

According to CDC data, the companies have wasted more doses than states, U.S. territories and federal agencies added together.

Pfizer’s vaccine was the first to be made available, in December, and initially required storage at ultracold temperatures. It represented nearly 60% of the doses that were tossed out.

It’s not clear from the CDC data why the two chains wasted so much more vaccine than states and federal agencies.

Some critics have pointed to poor planning early in the rollout of the vaccine, when the Trump administration leaned heavily on CVS and Walgreens to inoculate residents and staff members of long-term care facilities.

In response to questions, CVS said “nearly all” of its reported vaccine waste occurred during that effort. Walgreens did not specify how many wasted doses were from the long-term care program.

The bigger issue regarding the government’s role in the distribution of the vaccine is that, months into the nation’s drive to get American inoculated against the coronavirus, the CDC still has only a limited view of how much vaccine is going to waste, where it’s wasted and who is wasting it. This potentially complicates efforts to direct doses to where they are needed most.

Public health experts say having a good handle on waste is crucial for detecting problems that could derail progress and risk lives.

The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which come in multidose vials, are fragile and have limited shelf lives.

Overall, waste has been minuscule. As of March 30, the United States had delivered roughly 189.5 million vaccine doses and administered 147.6 million, including 7.7 million in long-term care facilities, according to the CDC.

But it still amounts to wasted taxpayers’ money. Because the federal government is footing the bill for the country’s doses, any waste amounts to “basically throwing [taxpayer] money down the chute,” says Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, a professor of health policy and management at the City University of New York.

CVS, Walgreens and other retailers don’t pay for the vaccine. The government provides it. And, under the Medicare program, it pays providers roughly $40 for each dose administered.

Beyond that, tracking wasted doses helps identify bottlenecks where distribution adjustments might be needed, Lee says.

Early on in particuilar, officials didn’t adequately assess where there would be demand and set up sites in response, Lee says — something that’s especially important when trying to get shots to as many people as possible as quickly as can be done.

“If you think of any business, they’re going to determine where the customers are first,” he says. “It’s not just a matter of loading up vaccine and going to a place.”

KHN’s survey was based on public records requests to the CDC and all 50 states, five major cities, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. The records document more than 200,000 wasted doses.

There are shortcomings with the data, though. Figures from 15 states, the District of Columbia and multiple U.S. territories aren’t included in the CDC’s records. And waste reporting in general has been inconsistent.

In addition to the CDC, 33 states and D.C. provided at least some data in response to those records requests. They reported at least 18,675 additional doses that have been wasted across 10 jurisdictions not represented in the CDC figures. These include 9,229 doses wasted in Texas as of March 26 and 2,384 in New Hampshire as of March 10.

An additional eight states told KHN of more wasted doses than they’d reported to the CDC.

But no city or state comes close to the amount of doses waste reported by CVS and Walgreens, whose long-term care vaccination drive was criticized by some officials as slow and ineffective. Among nursing home staffers, a median of 37.5% reported they got a shot in the first month, according to a February CDC study.

“To me, this ultimately correlates with just poor planning,” says Dr. Michael Wasserman, immediate past president of the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine and a critic of the corporate effort.

According to Wasserman, the companies’ approach was too restrictive, and their unfamiliarity with long-term facilities’ needs hampered the effort.

“CVS and Walgreens didn’t have a clue when it came to interacting with nursing homes,” he says. “Missed opportunities for vaccination in long-term care invariably results in deaths.”

CVS spokesman Michael DeAngelis blames wasted doses on “issues with transportation restrictions, limitations on redirecting unused doses and other factors” but says, “Despite the inherent challenges, our teams were able to limit waste to approximately one dose per onsite vaccination clinic.”

Walgreens says its wasted doses amounted to under 0.5% of vaccines the company administered through March 29, which totaled 3 million shots in long-term care facilities and 5.2 million more through the federal government’s retail pharmacy partnership.

Provided

Before scheduled clinics, Walgreens’ Kris Lathan says, the chain based the number of doses needed on registrations, “which minimized excess and reduced overestimations.”

The CDC’s Kate Fowlie says that because the retail pharmacy giants were administering a large number of doses, “A higher percentage of the overall wastage would not be unexpected, particularly in an early vaccination effort that spanned thousands of locations.”

Since President Joe Biden took office in January, his administration has directed pharmacies to prioritize vaccinations for teachers and school employees.

Pharmacies accounted for nearly 75% of wasted doses reported to the CDC. States and some large cities accounted for 23.3% of vaccine waste reported, and federal agencies, including the Bureau of Prisons and the Indian Health Service, for just 1.54%. The figure for the Virgin Islands — the only U.S. territory in the federal data — was 0.19%.

“Though every effort is made to reduce the volume of wastage in a vaccination program, sometimes it’s necessary to identify doses as ‘waste’ to ensure anyone wanting a vaccine can receive it, as well as to ensure patient safety and vaccine effectiveness,” Fowlie says.

Vaccine waste could increase as officials shift tactics to inoculate harder-to-reach populations, health experts say.

“I think we are getting to a place where, to continue to be successful with vaccination, we’re going to have to tolerate some waste,” says Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

People unwilling to travel to a mass-vaccination site might go to a primary-care physician or smaller rural pharmacy that might not be able to use every dose in an open vial, Plescia says.

Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, says concerns about waste shouldn’t trump getting shots into arms.

“If someone’s there, you need to vaccinate them,” Hannan says. “In our efforts not to waste a dose, we may be missing opportunities to vaccinate because we don’t have 15 people lined up or 10 people lined up.”

The 15 states not included in the CDC’s data are Alaska, California, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas. The District of Columbia is also missing.

Of those jurisdictions, 11 provided data to KHN: Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and D.C., most reporting minimal waste.

Texas had the most wasted doses of any state. Its records showed 9,229 wasted doses as of March 26, putting it behind only CVS and Walgreens.

The reasons for waste ranged from broken vials and syringes to provider storage errors to leftover doses from open vials that couldn’t be used.

The biggest instances of waste — hundreds of doses at a time lost — tended to be due to freezer malfunctions or workers leaving doses at room temperature for too long.

State records also show the little things that can go wrong. On Dec. 16, the Gunnison County, Colorado, health department lost a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine when someone bumped into a table and a vial spilled. On Jan. 5, the Tri-County Health Department in Westminster, Colorado, wasted a Moderna dose because a hypodermic needle bent.

Remi Graber, a registered nurse who has vaccinated people at mass sites and community clinics in Rhode Island, says it’s not uncommon for a vial to have one too many or one too few doses, which can lead to a dose being counted as wasted.

But the bigest problem, according to Graber, is people not showing up for appointments.

Once a vial is punctured, Pfizer’s vaccine must be used within six hours. On April 1, Moderna said an opened vaccine vial was good for 12 hours — double what it was previously.

“What could happen is you get people who just decide, ‘You know what? I don’t need my vaccine today. I’m not going to show up,’ ” Graber says. “Well, now we’re scrambling to find somebody to take the vaccine because we don’t want to waste it.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues.

Read More

Brandon Corbin, 24, was fatally shot while driving a vehicle with his wife in the passenger seat, police said.

A driver crashed his vehicle after being fatally shot Sunday in suburban Berwyn.

Officers responded to a call of shots fired about 2:35 a.m. in the area of 13th Street and Wenonah Avenue and found a rolled over vehicle, Berwyn police said.

Brandon Corbin, 24, who was driving the vehicle, had been shot in the head, police said. He was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood where he was pronounced dead, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

His wife, who was riding in the vehicle, was also taken to a hospital, police said.

Investigators found that several males approached Corbin’s vehicle in an alley on Roosevelt Road and engaged him in conversation, police said.

When Corbin drove away, shots were fired in the direction of his vehicle, striking him in the head, police said. Corbin hit several parked cars after being shot, causing his car to overturn.

Berwyn police are investigating.

Read More

Luis Robert has a Grade 3 strain of his right hip flexor, which is a complete tear. Further consultation will determine the next steps, GM Rick Hahn said, with surgery a possibility.

The White Sox will be without center fielder Luis Robert for at least 12 weeks, general manager Rick Hahn said Monday.

Luis Robert has a Grade 3 strain of his right hip flexor, which is a complete tear. Further consultation with specialists in the coming days will determine the next steps, Hahn, with surgery a possibility.

Robert will not resume baseball activities for 12 to 16 weeks, Hahn said. The GM said it was soon to know how long Robert will be out.

“The options include surgery, if in fact the tear has affected the tendon’s attachment to the bone or a rehabilitation process in which natural healing will take place if the tear is to the muscle as opposed to the attachment between the tendon and the bone,” Hahn said

The timeline is the same, either way, Hahn said, and won’t be known until after the next steps are taken, Hahn said.

Robert was injured running out an infield single in the first inning Sunday against the Indians. He had to be helped off the field and did not put pressure on his right leg.

Robert rapped a pitch from Zach Plesac down the third-base line and beat the throw from third baseman Jose Ramirez. He appeared to suffer the injury just before reaching first base.

Robert is hitting .316/.359/.461/ with an .822 OPS and one homer, nine doubles, a triple and four stolen bases. He won a Gold Glove and was second in voting for AL Rookie of the Year honors in 2020.

The Sox lost left fielder Eloy Jimenez with a pectoral injury during spring training that will keep him out for most or all of the season, and lost Adam Engel during with a hamstring injury in spring training. Leury Garcia figures to man most of the innings in center until Engel returns, which should be this month. Engel was initially expected back in April but suffered a setback during his rehab and will not begin a rehab assisgnment for at least three weeks, Hahn said.

Read More

Monday, during her first post-training camp media availability on a new team, Parker was able to share what has impressed her about her new team.

The Sky have not been short on adulation for Candace Parker and what the two-time league MVP brings to this already talented team.

Monday, during her first post-training camp media availability, Parker was able to share what has impressed her.

One word sums it up: communication.

“Everything that is expected of me and this team is communicated well,” Parker said. “That’s sometimes the thing that takes the longest, and it seems like we’re right there.”

Parker has been balancing two careers, one as a player and another as an NBA analyst for Turner Sports. This has included broadcasts that end at 1 a.m., followed by 9 a.m. workouts. Her key to succeeding at it is taking things day by day.

Parker works with Turner through the NBA’s regular season so that juggling act will cease next week.

In their second week of training camp, Sky coach and general manager James Wade said the focus remains on developing chemistry, implementing new systems and establishing a stronger defensive mindset.

Their preseason games against the Fever on May 9 and 11 will be an evaluation of younger players as the Sky will still be without most of their backcourt. Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley have six negative COVID-19 tests to produce before they can undergo physicals and begin training with the team. Rookie Shyla Heal is still not in town.

Developing a rotation isn’t possible without the team intact, but Wade did say that Parker and Diamond DeShields complement each other well.

Deshields’ cutting abilities, talent scoring in transition and aptitude for drawing defenders to her combined with Parker’s passing on the move, ball-handling in transition and perimeter shooting is a lethal combination offensively. Simply put, both are playmakers, and together will be a matchup nightmare.

On paper, Parker said she and DeShields could be unbelievable. But Parker believes not enough people are paying attention to DeShields’ skill on defense. That’s where she feels they can truly disrupt teams.

Parker likened the pairing to her chemistry with former teammate and member of the Sparks’ 2016 WNBA championship team, Kristi Toliver.

“Our pick and roll play, how she could handle and shoot and her high IQ [is similar to DeShields],” Parker said. “I think in terms of the impact from paper to actually doing it could be the same with me and Diamond.”

If that comparison indicates what this 2021 Sky team could accomplish together, the WNBA Championship expectations aren’t far-fetched.

DeShields said she’s feeling great coming into camp after leaving the WNBA bubble early due to personal reasons, followed by an offseason that she spent working out almost every day. She was crosstraining, boxing and in the gym working with different basketball trainers.

The goal was to have confidence stepping back on the court with her team. Now, the focus simplifies to staying consistent and one singular accomplishment.

“There’s only one thing that I want to accomplish, and that’s to be holding the trophy at the end of the season,” DeShields said.

Read More

Pritzker said he couldn’t provide the exact date the state could move into the stage between Phases 4 and 5 because he hadn’t yet looked at the latest data on hospital admissions, but he said it looks like the state is in “decent shape” to advance to the bridge phase. 

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday the state has met some metrics that could allow Illinois to enter the “bridge” stage between restrictions now in place and a full reopening, cracking the door to higher capacity limits at museums, zoos and meetings potentially as early as next week.

At an unrelated news conference, Pritzker said he couldn’t provide the exact date the state could move into the stage between Phases 4 and 5 because he hadn’t yet looked at data from Sunday and Monday about hospital admissions, but he said it looks like the state is in “decent shape” to advance to the bridge phase.

“I think the common view is that Illinois has weathered the storm well, that we’ve seen what’s happened in in Michigan and that hasn’t happened in Illinois — thank God,” Pritzker said. “This virus is sometimes unpredictable. We’ve seen new variants that arise. The UK variant is the one, of course, that is most prevalent.”

“That’s why we’ve been very careful not to move to the bridge phase while we watch that variant in Illinois, but it looks very good so far. We look at all of those variants — I talked to the experts about this — I think everybody feels like we’re in a decent position — again, following the metrics —we believe that we’ll be able to move to the bridge phase.”

As for when the state will cross that bridge, the governor said, “I can’t say exactly what day that is. … I believe that it may be next week, and it’s only because I haven’t looked at today’s data or the data from yesterday with regard to hospital admissions.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times file

Statewide reopening metrics from the Illinois Department of Public Health show the state is largely trending in the right direction.

Nearly 80% of those 65 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine, while roughly 55% of those 16 and older have received the inoculation. Both figures surpass the benchmarks Pritzker set in March when unveiling guidelines for his newly created “bridge” phase.

Metrics for available, and staffed, beds in intensive care units have hovered near 20% since late April.

The department’s data also show new daily COVID-19 cases on the decline and no significant changes in the state’s daily mortality rate or new hospital admissions for COVID-19 or similar illnesses.

But the department’s data does show an increase in the overall trend of patients hospitalized with the deadly virus, a figure that’s been on the decline over the past four days.

Pritzker said he’s been “amazed” at Illinois residents’ willingness to follow the mitigations, including those who’ve been vaccinated but continue to wear masks while outdoors. He encouraged those who haven’t yet been vaccinated to do so, saying “one of the rewards is that we can all enjoy the summer without a mask on if you’ve gotten vaccinated, and you’re also doing what’s right for your family and your community.”

The governor announced the 28-day “bridge” phase of his reopening plan in March, nearly a year after issuing his first stay-at-home order.

To reach that phase, 70% of those 65 and over must have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. A full reopening comes when 50% of the state’s 16 and over population have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times file

The state must also maintain a 20% or lower intensive-care-unit bed availability rate and hold steady on COVID-19 and COVID-like illness hospital admissions, mortality rate, and case rate over a 28-day monitoring period.

Less than two weeks after Pritzker announced that new plan, rising case numbers and hospitalizations pushed back any reopening plans.

In the intermediate bridge stage between Phases 4 and 5, museums will see their capacity limitations increase from 25% to 60%. The same limitations will apply to zoos.

Amusement parks will be able to increase capacity from the 25% restriction in Phase 4 to 60% in the intermediate stage. Festivals and general admission outdoor, spectator events can seat 30 people per 1,000 square feet in the bridge phase.

Amusement parks will be able to increase capacity from the 25% restriction in Phase 4 to 60% in the intermediate stage. Festivals and general admission outdoor, spectator events can seat 30 people per 1,000 square feet in the bridge phase.

Meetings, conferences and conventions will see their capacity limit increase to either 1,000 people or 60%, whichever is less. The limitations around meetings also apply to theaters and performing arts venues.

Read More

He’ll front the May 15 episode with ‘Drivers License’ singer Olivia Rodrigo as musical guest.

Former Second City star Keegan-Michael Key will be hosting “Saturday Night Live,” a big move for the actor who made his name on the rival show “Mad TV.”

Key will host the May 15 episode, the show announced on its official Twitter. Olivia Rodrigo, the “High School Musical: The Series” actress who scored a blockbuster hit with her single “Drivers License,” will be the musical guest.

The following week, host Anya Taylor-Joy from “The Queen’s Gambit” will close out the “SNL” season, with musical guest Lil Nas X.

Key was plucked from Chicago in 2004 to join the cast of Fox’s Saturday night “SNL” challenger “Mad TV,” where he impersonated dozens of celebrities and created characters including the hot-tempered Coach Hines and the pesky water deliveryman Eugene Struthers. With “Mad TV” castmate Jordan Peele (also a Chicago improv alum), he went on to star in the acclaimed Comedy Central sketch series “Key & Peele.”

Since then he has appeared in films including “Dolemite Is My Name,” “Playing With Fire,” “Jingle Jangle” and “The Prom,” and contributed voice performances to “The Lion King,” “Toy Story 4” and the “Hotel Transylvania” films.

He will star with “SNL’s” Cecily Strong in “Schmigadoon!,” a musical comedy series premiering July 16 on AppleTV+.

Read More

Read More