As the third largest city in the country, Chicago experienced its first coronavirus case in late January and locked down with a shelter-in-place order during the third week of March, when Illinois was approaching a cumulative total of 600 total cases
and five deaths.
Ninety days later, Illinois is now recording 600 new cases and 43 deaths per day, based on the latest seven-day moving average.
In a vivid illustration of how community and political perspectives on the virus have
changed, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (a last name not unfamiliar to the hotel industry, due to his family’s founding of the Hyatt hotel chain) has now moved the state into the Phase 4 “revitalization” segment of its reopening plan.
Phase
4 allows group gatherings of up to 50 people, restaurants to seat parties of up to 10 with a minimum of six feet between tables and standing areas (such as bars) filling to a maximum of 25% of capacity.
A tangible example of Chicago’s success
in flattening the curve of the virus is the June 24 announcement by the University of Chicago Medical Center that it is no longer dedicating units or floors to care solely for COVID-19 patients.
In mid-April, there were 140 COVID-19 patients occupying the hospital’s 146 ICU beds. Today, the number of COVID-19 ICU patients has fallen to 18.
The state should be commended for creating a plan, clearly defining the metrics required to be
met in order to advance to the next phase and continually communicating progress by publishing a robust dashboard.
Over the coming months, by teaming up with the data science team at LodgIQ, Phocuswright is evaluating a broad swathe of hotel-related and other data across a variety of key metropolitan
areas.
Our key objectives are to model the:
- Level of disruption
- Duration of disruption
- Shape of the recovery curve
The goal is to understand the similarities and differences in hotel market dynamics between destinations.
This is especially relevant, as some markets may have yet to peak in terms of the level of infections, while others are seeing active coronavirus case counts decline.
The eighth COVID-19 Hotel Forecast report, written by Robert Cole, covers the city of Chicago in Illinois. It is available for free below (download here).