- [Woman Announcer] Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home & Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.

- [Male Announcer] At IHMVCU, we've always been here for you.

You are and always will be our top at priority.

We care about your financial and physical health.

And we are here.

IHMVCU is a proud supporter of WQPT.

- Year three of COVID.

We talk with the top doctor in Illinois about the successes and failures and getting ready to caucus in the cities.

(upbeat music) Iowa will hold its caucuses Monday, February 7th.

It's not as big as during the presidential years, so why is it even held?

We'll have more in a moment, but first a grim anniversary.

As Illinois enters year three of COVID 19, there is so much progress being made since the first COVID case was detected in Chicago on January 24th, 2020, but there have been stumbles, mistakes, successes and optimism ever since.

The public face of the Illinois effort to curb the growth of the pandemic has been the director of the state Public Health Department.

And we got to talk with Dr. Ngozi Ezike from her offices in Chicago.

The latest numbers, Dr. Ezike shows almost a third fewer COVID cases from a week ago, but more deaths than a week ago.

What does that say to you as far as those statistics are concerned?

- Well, the good news is that we know that the deaths will come down.

We know that the deaths lag after the hospitalization.

And so since we are seeing the hospitalized patients, those numbers are coming down, the deaths associated with that will come down.

But the high numbers of deaths that we're seeing are a result of earlier numbers, those high, high numbers that you talked about, that we've since come off of.

- And we've heard repeatedly, of course, that perhaps we shouldn't be looking at case numbers now, but looking at hospitalizations, and that is still a troubling number in hospitals statewide.

- No, definitely.

Even with our numbers, you know, finally falling under 5,000.

Those are 5,000 patients with COVID that two years ago, wouldn't be taking up any of the roughly 30,000 beds that we have in the hospitals.

So we still need to see those numbers come down significantly to lessen the burden on our hospital systems and our healthcare work staff.

So we are happy that the trend is going down.

We need it to keep going down and obviously stay down.

- We're starting a third year.

We have seen peaks and valleys and surge after surge.

How are you optimistic in this coming year?

- Well, with every passing day, more and more people are vaccinated.

We have over 8 million people vaccinated in the state.

Every day, 10, 12,000 new people get their first dose of vaccine, so we are making progress 'cause we know that the vaccines are our best bet for whatever next variant might come our way.

And we are also seeing on the horizon right now, only in small quantities, the monoclonal antibodies, some oral therapies.

And so when that production increases and the availability of that is more widespread, that's another important piece in our arsenal with which we have to fight the pandemic.

- Well, and of course you are gonna bring up the vaccinations, and the vaccines when they were first introduced, a huge surge of people wanting to get them.

And then another surge basically when mandates were put in place and employers said, you have to have them, but we've almost plateaued don't you think with the number of people getting vaccinations right now?

So what is the state gonna do?

Or what can it do from this point forward?

- We can continue to share the information that we have, that we know about out the effectiveness of the vaccine, what it is successful in doing, and what it is very successful in doing is limiting people's risk of ending up in the hospital.

If month over month, when we look at all the thousands of people that have been hospitalized consistently, we see that 90% of those individuals are not vaccinated.

So the vaccines are speaking for themself, and we're so grateful for the 10 to 12,000 people who every day make that decision to go get their vaccine.

I know we had another surge of vaccination in response to, you know, concerns around Omicron.

Yes, that has since fallen off, but there's still a small bunch, and we are gonna continue you to educate from our public health pulpits, but as well from our doctor's offices and friends who have seen the benefits of this vaccine, and unfortunately who have seen the ravages from those who haven't been vaccinated.

- Well and as you well know, I mean, we saw a virtual shutdown of the state almost two years ago, and that's what we faced from, you know, from the Northern part of the state, all the way to the Southern part.

And now we've got the mask mandates, as well as the push for vaccinations.

Do you think there's gonna be any easing of some of the mandates statewide?

- I absolutely think there will be.

Again, we needed these mask mandates not just because everyone should be wearing it at the time.

We do know that it decreases transmission, but we needed to pull every lever we could because our hospitals were on the edge.

They were completely full.

We currently still have 2,700 staff provided by the state to hospitals across the state because there were not enough people to take care of all of these patients COVID and non-COVID.

So as we passed the peak of Omicron and those numbers continue to fall, and we fell from a peak of 7,400 COVID patients in the hospital to now in the 4,500 range.

As that number continues to go down, we will be at a level where we can think about taking off that mask because we can handle in our hospitals, the load of patients and every body can get the care they need.

So we know that there may be another time in the future where there might be another surge where the response will be different, but we're looking forward in the near future to being able to relax some of those mitigations.

- Well, COVID has really proven to be insidious and not predictable is what the other thing that we have certainly learned, but have we learned anything from these variants?

I mean, as we go to Omicron and whatever happens afterwards, is it lessening its ability to attack the human body?

Or is it just as lethal now as it ever was?

- Well, fortunately we did see that Omicron, it's still was very, there are still many people who died from the Omicron infection.

Of course, those were largely people who had no vaccination protection, but it's just, it's transmissibility, how effective it was in spreading to so many people at once just created a lot of illness and found those unvaccinated people, and unfortunately landed many of them in the hospital.

So the point is that we know whatever the variant, we know that the vaccinations are our best protection.

And so we wanna continue to encourage that.

We want people to get their boosters, and then we wanna just follow, you know, the information that we get from around the world.

We can learn a lot from what might be coming as we see what's happening in other countries.

And then we can prepare ourselves and take the steps that we need to keep ourselves as protected and safe as possible.

- Are we at that point right now that we just have to live with COVID, it's always gonna be a part of our lives?

- I have to admit that I think we are going to be looking to a future where COVID is a part of our lives.

And so instead of feeling like we are constantly in crisis mode with COVID, we need to get to the point where we're just coexisting with COVID.

And so we know what works, we know what we need to do.

Hopefully our scientists and researchers will continue to innovate and come up with more therapies.

And that we'll continue to maybe even get vaccines that are more effective that maybe don't need to be administered as often.

We're looking to our research and science partners to keep doing that which they can do to support the end of the pandemic stage, but being able to help us live with this and get back to that level of normalcy, even with COVID constantly in the background, - Dr. Ezike, you've seen what this coronavirus has done to the nation, but what has it also done to public health?

You guys have a voice, a pulpit, you've spoken out on other issues that were medical before this, but the public really, at least a third of the public looks at what you say and doesn't believe almost a single word that you say.

What a strange time we live in.

- I would definitely agree.

And I know that we have to work on that from every angle possible, because at the end of the day, as was the case before COVID, you know, our sole mission is to protect the health and the safety of the people within our state.

And our guidance has always been to do things and act things that promoted that.

And so if people shirk completely away from public health guidance, we're gonna have more sickness and more disease than we have to deal with.

And that's not something that anyone wants for our society.

So we need to rebuild the relationship between the community and public health.

We need to work to try to get past some of the miss information and try to support and share real facts that will help us be healthy as a community, as a state.

And that's an ongoing challenge that we are committed to work on because we have to work on that.

- Well, there's always been a group that were hesitant, let's say, of any type of vaccination, but one would've thought that was a much smaller minority than what we're seeing right now.

Do you feel that it is people that are not sure that this vaccine is safe?

Or that they're not sure that it's effective?

Or is it that people just don't want to be told what to do?

- I think it's D. All of the above.

You know, we also know that there has been a widespread politicization of the vaccines, of the pandemic.

And so all of these factors have really complicated how people are viewing them.

We do know that some people just have unfortunately been fed misinformation.

But if that is all the information that you've received, you know, you're working on the best information that you have.

And so we have to teach the public how to assess the sources from which they, you know, they get their information.

I think we should be able to agree that our physicians, you know, our medical leaders should be able to share what are the best strategies for people to promote their health.

We go to them when we're sick.

We go to them when we're having, when we're gonna bring life into the world.

We go to them when we are dealing with cancer.

These are also the people that will tell you that vaccines are the best strategy to move towards the normalcy that we're all looking for.

And so I would encourage us who maybe don't wanna listen to public health at this moment, you know.

Listen to your doctors who are on the front lines, have seen that this COVID pandemic is real, have seen the 30 plus thousand people that have died in Illinois alone and are gonna give you the right advice to support you being safe and your families as well.

- Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health.

In a moment, the Iowa caucuses.

They're here already.

But first, welcome to February.

Laura Adams tells us how we can welcome the start of the shortest month of the year as we go out and about.

- [Laura] This is Out and About for February 4th through 10th.

There's still time to catch Winter Wheels Antique Motorcycle Exhibition at the Putnam Museum and Science Center.

The exhibit closes on February 11th.

The next film in The Quad City Environmental Film Series takes place on the 6th with The Ants and the Grasshopper at the Figge Arte Museum at 2:00 PM.

The Quad City Symphony Orchestra continues with their Masterwork Series Bruckner 8 on the 5th at the Adler Theatre at 7:30 PM.

Your Mom Band performs at the Rhythm City Casino, the 5th at 7:30, while Tomfollery on Tremont present comedian Tim Smith, February 6th at The Renwick Mansion at 8:00.

Billy Branch will be the resident artist for the first 2022 Blues in the Schools program presented by the Mississippi Valley Blue Society from February 7th through the 10th.

And he will also perform at the Village Theater in the Village of East Davenport on February 9th.

Coming up, The Raccoon Motel is Motherfolk, the 3rd and Joshua Ray Walker on the 4th.

There are auditions for three plays coming up at Richmond Hill Players in Geneseo.

Come out Saturday and Sunday, February 5th and 6th from 1:00 to 3:00 to audition.

And The Play That Goes Wrong continues at Circa '21, a wacky play within a play where everything that can go wrong, does.

For more information visit WQPT.org.

- Thank you, Laura.

On Monday night at 7:00, Democrats and Republicans across the state of Iowa will meet for something most everyone thinks happens just once every four years, but both political parties hold their Iowa caucuses every two years to deal with party leadership, platforms and to meet some of the candidates.

And so it goes Monday, starting at 7:00.

And we talk with Scott County Democratic Party Chair, Matt Trimble about the caucus and democratic prospects for 2022.

Matt, what is the importance of this caucus?

'Cause I mean, you think the only reason why anyone cares about the caucuses is you get to pick the president nominee.

- Well, a caucus is a chance for neighbors to come together and talk about how they're doing, how to support our candidates who are committed to Iowa working families, and it's grassroots democracy at its best.

This year's not a presidential caucus, it'll be a lot quieter.

And we elect delegates to the county convention and then to our precinct committee, which is the real working group that moves our local party forward.

We'll discuss platform issues and resolutions.

And then, you know, we'll have a convention in March.

So anyone who shows up is eligible, and it's open to registered Democrats in Scott County.

And if you're ready to leave the Republican Party, we'll invite you in.

We're doing voter registrations that night as well.

- Now it is both parties.

I mean the Republicans are holding caucuses as well throughout the state of Iowa.

- Correct.

Yep.

- And what's interesting is that every time I talk to the state chairman for the Republican Party or the state chairman for the Democratic Party, there is very few agreements between the two parties and the two groups.

One thing they agree on is the Iowa caucus and preserving the caucus system in Iowa.

Why is that important?

- Well, honestly the focus I've got right now is on winning in 2022.

So I know we want to stay first in the nation because the people of Iowa are smart and have a history of really being a sample of what's going on in the United States.

So, but really my focus is winning in 2022.

There's a lot of seats, you know, that we can win.

Convinced of that.

- I wanna talk about 2022 in just a moment, but I obviously have to leap ahead to 2024.

After 2020 and the national, if not international attention, the Iowa caucus has got in a negative light because of the delay in the release of the results.

How difficult is it for Iowa and the Democratic Party, or at least Iowa Democrats, to convince the national party that, you know,ú an Iowa caucus is still viable as being first in the nation?

- Well, I think really we need to go back to just keeping things simple and neighbor to neighbor and making sure that caucus fits in every community.

And that's a challenge when you've got Scott County that is the third largest.

And then you go out to, you know, Red Oak, Iowa in that area where it's, you know, a very small community and, you know, it needs to fit.

And for us to do that really a low tech solution, maybe at least for the midterm that's what I see us doing.

- Yeah.

Low tech, but let's be honest.

I mean, in 2020, it was two things.

High tech and the hope that it was very transparent and that almost bit the Democrats in the leg.

- Yeah, really the focus for me is making sure we win in 2022.

And I think borrowing things into the future too far is nothing, as a party chair, I can focus on.

I'll make sure that the DNC knows, you know, knows my opinion, but really I need to make sure 2022 produces results, so we can assert more going forward.

- Is that something that happens in 2022?

Is that, I mean, you're obviously trying to build towards November of this year, but to move forward beyond that.

I mean, I know that you're really interested in 2022, but you gotta have 2024 in the back of your mind as well.

- I think for state level leadership, definitely, but I'm in the trenches here winning, you know, winning some very winnable seats and staying focused on that.

- When you take a look at 2022 also right now, is that, I mean, voters might be a little confused even who their candidates are due to reapportionment.

Totally understandable because all the lines were redrawn for congressional, as well as for state legislative districts.

What changes did you notice as far as Scott County is concerned with the newly drawn lines for the legislature?

- Well, it is reflective well, the redistricting went through that second choice.

So it was, you know, the LSA is a nonpartisan legislative services agency.

You know, their goal is to make sure that it's follows the law, it's constitutionally sound and the, you know, the differences now are, you know, reflective of, you know, things changing in Scott County and in our district.

You know, different representation, the cities have a little more representation.

Some of the counties, you know, the unincorporated areas grew, you know, because of people moving, new housing is sprouting up.

So it'll be a shift.

Some of it is very much in our favor as Democrats.

And some of it, you know, we'll have to fight a little harder for, but we can still win those seats.

- You're gonna have some interesting State Senate races that are based in Scott County as well in this year.

- Yes.

Yeah.

Several competitive seats, but I think we've got the hardest working candidates who are ready to hit doors and talk to voters one on one, which is really key.

And I think that that's where we're gonna focus.

And regardless of where you are in the county, there's Democrats, and you may not know they're Democrats, but they're there.

- What is the message going forward?

Because you know what the Republican message is, and that is tax cuts, a flat tax, giving money back to people of Iowa, and that the economy is running very well under Republican rule.

- But I would say that that tax agenda is a radical right wing agenda.

And it's no longer what the Republicans, you know, that we grew up with around even the Ronald Reagan Republicans stand for anymore.

All they care about is their rich donors and making sure corporations don't have to pay their fair share anymore.

So that that 4% flat tax, which is a lower rate.

The millionaires in Iowa and corporations won't really have to worry about paying their fair share.

And we've got some of the like the worst infrastructure in Iowa.

And that's where we need that tax money, even just a fraction.

You know, back to infrastructure, 'cause you probably saw what happened in Pennsylvania today with the bridge collapse in Pittsburgh.

That's an example and, and they're not even the worst.

So we're next.

Hopefully nothing in Scott County or anywhere.

We have a bridge collapse 'cause you know, there may be fatalities, but the Republicans going after taxation in Iowa is just a distraction from really having solutions and standing up for working Iowas.

They're not doing that.

- But in some ways isn't the Republican message actually resonating 'cause take a look.

Republicans are in control of the Governor's mansion.

They're in control of the Senate and the House in Iowa.

They've done very well in congretional races as well.

I mean you have to have a message that's gonna change people's minds.

- Well, we're just seeing it in these last few days with the Biden administration's economic recovery numbers and the Build Back Better infrastructure bill had just landed last week.

So all of that money is finally coming to communities and really when people start seeing that and union jobs are growing and access to, you know, a decent wage and all of the stuff that's gonna come out of the infrastructure bill.

We're just seeing that now.

So what the Republicans are running on is just giveaways to people, you know, at the top end of the pay scale and not having solutions to pay for healthcare, public schools, infrastructure, you know, roads and bridges.

You know, that resonates obviously with...

I'm not talking to Republicans.

I know that.

I need people who care about their communities to vote for Democrats and show up and help us.

- 2022 also is gonna be a different election year, as far as how the elections are run in Iowa and how you vote in Iowa.

I know you can complain about what the Republicans did in the legislature to change the vote.

That's kind of in our rear view mirror right now.

So what are you telling voters or how are you telling people to prepare for 2022 as far as get out the vote even at this point?

- Well, so in our own county, you know, we've got the person who spearheaded the Heritage Foundation's attack on voting in Iowa.

They did, there was a video released shortly after the voting rights voter suppression bill was passed in Iowa.

You know, Robbie Smith, he's in my district.

He's my State Senator.

He's, you know.

He's the one who took that on and made sure that that if you're a shut in or a home bound person or a college student, that you have a very short window of time to vote.

And, you know, maybe even his own family was disenfranchised by this because they couldn't turn around their ballot fast enough.

It's just unreasonable.

And it's an attack across, you know, it's a foundational attack on our democracy, and it's happening right here.

So what I would say is make sure if you have any questions as a voter that you reach out to the local democratic party, you talk to your neighbors, you make sure you know what's going on.

We've got some great candidates.

We're gonna be making sure that people get their ballots early, that we count every single ballot as it comes in, make sure everything's accounted for, and that everyone gets their ballot turned in.

- Scott County, Democratic Party Chair, Matt Trimble.

And you can find out where to caucus by going to the websites for the Scott County Republican or Democratic parties.

On the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device and streaming on your computer.

Thanks for taking some time to join us as we talk about the issues on The Cities.

(upbeat music) - [Woman Announcer] Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home & Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.

- [Male Announcer] At IHMVC, we've always been here for you.

You are and always will be our top priority.

We care about your financial and physical health.

And we are here.

IHMVCU is a proud supporter of WQPT.