THE CHICAGO MAROON — NOVEMBER 18, 2020
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University Reports 68 New Cases of COVID–19 By GIACOMO CETORELLI News Reporter The University has reported a total of 68 cases of COVID–19 this week, according to the most recent UChicago Forward update. 15 of the University-administered tests this week were positive out of 4,371 administered. This week’s total case count is more than double last week’s 32 cases, a figure that includes both on- and off-campus university members, but not medical center personnel. The Contact Tracing Team has identified 53 close contacts, or about 0.78 contacts per positive case, this week, up
from last week’s figure of 0.72 contacts per case. As of November 12, the University has seen 269 cases of the virus affiliated with its campus community since September 18. Students living off campus should not return to campus between Thanksgiving and winter quarter and should not host any nonessential visitors in light of the worsening COVID–19 situation in the city of Chicago, per an email from Provost Ka Yee Lee Friday afternoon. The email comes one day after the city of Chicago implemented a new stay-at-home advisory in reaction to a
spike in COVID–19 cases in the city. In response to the city order, Lee emphasized new travel guidelines and limitations for on-campus work and specified that in-person classes will continue as planned through the end of next week in an email sent to the University community on Friday afternoon. The University is discouraging unnecessary travel over the upcoming holidays and recommends limiting gatherings to immediate family members. In addition, students currently residing off campus are not permitted to visit campus between Thanksgiving break and the beginning of winter
quarter unless given express permission. Students staying on campus over the break will continue to have access to campus and their UChicago Dining plan. Lee said a new “work-from-home approach” w ill remain in ef fect through winter quarter at the earliest, promising further guidance before the beginning of winter quarter. In-person work is limited to tasks that must happen on campus, such as laboratory research. Additionally, nonessential visits to campus are not permitted, effective through at least January.
Mercy Hospital to Close, and the South Side Shudders By NICK TARR Senior News Reporter Mercy Hospital, a landmark of the South Side for over a century, plans to close its doors in the spring of 2021. The move makes the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) one of only a few hospitals left on Chicago’s South Side, leaving activists, labor officials, and residents with major concerns. Mercy announced the news on July 29 in a letter to the Illinois Health Facilities and Service Review Board, citing years of losses in inpatient volumes and high costs of maintenance as key factors in the closure. The closure comes after a yearslong battle by Mercy to find alternatives to their inpatient service model without sacrificing service. Most notable among these efforts was 2019’s “South Side Coalition,” in which Mercy Hospital proposed a merger with three other hospitals—St. Bernard, Advocate Trinity, and South Shore Medical Centers—with the support of the Chicago Department of Healthcare and Family Services. If approved, the Coalition planned to replace the four-member hospita ls w ith t wo brand-new inpatient medical centers and three to six outpatient centers, relying on public and private funding
totaling $1.1 billion. In the last moments of the 2020 spring legislative session, however, Illinois legislators chose not to fund the project. “ We have worked hard over the last several years to put Mercy Hospital on a financially sustainable path while continuing to serve the healthcare needs of our community,” Carol Schneider, Mercy’s CEO, said in a memo to Mercy staff. “But with the state’s elected officials declining to support our South Side Transformation plans in May, we have made the difficult decision to close the hospital sometime in 2021.” State legislators were uncertain about the project. “We should be sure what the results are going to be before spending government money on this level—hundreds of millions of dollars. We should be able to say, ‘This project will do this,’” State Representative Marcus Evans (IL-33) told Crain’s Chicago Business in May. At the same time, the Coalition’s member hospitals warned that legislative disapproval of the planned merger would leave them with no choice but to consider closures. With no path forward, the Coalition disbanded in May 2020. Despite the closure of their inpatient hospital, Mercy plans to implement a new outpatient system, replac-
Mercy Hospital is set to close in the spring of next year. matthew lee ing the hospital’s 319 inpatient beds and 43,000 annual emergency room visits with outpatient preventative and diagnostic care. This development, however, is expected to fall short of the South Side’s needs, according to Dennis Kossuth, a nurse at Provident Hospital and member of National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest nurses’ union “Any kind of closure is going to have an effect on people’s acute care needs,” Kosuth said. “There are thousands of babies that are born at Mercy every year. You don’t deliver a baby in an outpatient center.”
A History of Inequity Access to health care has long been an issue for the South Side’s predominantly Black communities. According to Mercy, residents of the North Side neighborhood Streeterville have a life expectancy 30 years longer than the residents of Englewood. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office also found that 60 percent of Chicago’s early COVID deaths came from Black communities, who make up only 30 percent of the population. “Black women are three to four times more likely to die during childCONTINUED ON PG. 3