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OAK PARK, Ill. (AP) – It was a sunny day, the first in about a week when temperatures had climbed past the 50-degree mark, and people in Chicago did what they always do on such a day: They flocked to the shores of Lake Michigan.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot did not consider that the kind of postcard perfect scene that attracts visitors from around the world. She saw danger. She saw “packs” of people and worried about the possibility that the coronavirus that has killed more than 25,000 worldwide was spreading from one person to another.
“We know what happens when you don’t social distance… ” Lightfoot told reporters after observing the waterside vista on Wednesday. “The illness rate goes through the roof, the strain on the hospitals is enormous and the death rate starts to escalate.”
A day later, she shut down the lakefront trails and nearby parks for the duration of the coronavirus crisis, warning that projections show more than 40,000 Chicagoans could need hospital treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, in the coming weeks.