Today’s update discusses:

• another record daily high of COVID-19-related deaths
• second GOP state representative files suit against Pritzker
• decrease in jobs across the states

HEALTH

• While other states in the Midwest plan to reopen, Illinois saw a reported 144 deaths related to COVID-19 on Tuesday, the highest number of confirmed deaths in a single day. Additionally, Illinois saw 2,219 new cases, which is the fifth time in the past week that the number of new cases has topped 2,000.

 EMERGENCY POWERS

• Following a Southern Illinois Judge’s order exempting GOP lawmaker Darren Bailey from Governor Pritzker’s statewide stay-at-home order, a second GOP representative sued today. Republican State Rep. John Cabello filed a lawsuit challenging the stay-at-home order in Winnebago County Circuit Court. The lawsuit asks a judge to block the stay-at-home order and any similar measures from being enforced on Cabello and all citizens similarly situated.

 ECONOMICS

• Preliminary data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Illinois Department of Employment Security reported the number of nonfarm jobs decreased in March in twelve Illinois metropolitan areas as compared to last year. These areas include Bloomington, Carbondale-Marion, Champaign-Urbana, Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights, Danville, Decatur, Elgin, Kankakee, Lake County-Kenosha County, Peoria, Rockford, Springfield, and the Illinois section of St. Louis metro East. Statewide from March 2019 to March 2020, the number of jobs dropped by 39,800.