Quick hits: Illinois news in brief for Friday, Feb. 5, 2021

All regions of the state in Phase 4

All regions of the state in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 reopening plan can now have no more than 50 percent indoor capacity.

The final region of the state, the metro-east St. Louis region, entered Phase 4 without any tiered mitigation.

The statewide mitigation limits gatherings to no more than 50 people. Pritzker’s Phase 5 would lift all restrictions when a vaccine or therapy is widely available.

Illinois has administered 1.1 million vaccine doses

Illinois has now administered more than 1.1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, more than half of the allotted 2.1 million total.

Of the state’s allocated doses for long term care residents, just 36 percent have been administered.

The state reports health workers have fully vaccinated nearly 257,000 Illinoisans or around 2 percent of the state’s population.

Illinois House to meet next week in House Chambers

The Illinois House is set to meet Wednesday inside the Illinois House Chambers at the state capitol for the first time in nearly a year.

The meeting will be to take up the House Rules which is expected to allow lawmakers to work remotely.

The Illinois Senate canceled in-person session for this month, but has a Senate Labor committee scheduled remotely for Wednesday to focus on unemployment insurance.

Forgiven PPP loans in Illinois could possibly take state tax hit

Illinois businesses don’t have to worry about paying federal taxes on those PPP loans, but it’s not yet clear if they’ll owe the state.

In Illinois, 225,409 forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans valued at approximately $22.85 billion were approved.

Congress passed legislation in December making PPP explicitly tax exempt.

It’s unclear how the state legislature will treat the loans.

Illinois leads nation in firearm background checks

Illinois continues to lead the country in the number of firearm background checks.

The FBI reports there were more than 1 million checks in Illinois for January.

That’s more than double Kentucky’s 421,000 checks. Illinois’ 1 million checks last month is also almost double the 612,000 checks in Illinois for January 2020.

Dispensaries sold $88.8 million in cannabis last month

Illinois more than doubled the amount of cannabis sold in the first month of this year compared to the first month of 2020, but the state barely sold more than last month.

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation reports the state sold $88.8 million worth of legal weed last month.

That’s just $2 million more than in December.

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