coronavirus Archives - Chicago Reader

News & Politics

CPD requested thousands of vaccine exemptions

by Taylor Moore May 5, 2022October 17, 2022

Nearly half of Chicago police employees applied for exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Willie Jones outside the Elite Houses of Sober Living's facility in Chicago Heights

News & Politics

‘I’ll be the first to die’

by Michael Murney June 17, 2021August 18, 2021

As Illinois prisons accelerated releases during the pandemic, many were forced into crowded, unmonitored residential reentry centers across Cook County.

News & Politics

PPP aid flooded fast food outlets facing labor complaints

by Gabriel Thompson for Reveal June 2, 2021August 18, 2021

One McDonald’s chain in Chicago received half a million dollars in forgivable federal loans. Then came complaints of COVID-19 safety failures and a deadly outbreak.

The police used pepper spray to subdue protesters attempting to remove the statue of Christopher Columbus from Grant Park.

News & Politics

Brutal and beautiful summer

by Grace Del Vecchio May 26, 2021July 8, 2022

Three stories from the front lines of the 2020 protests, when the bridges went up and the statues came down

News & Politics

COVID’s invisible victims

by Sylvia Puente and Marina Del Rios May 7, 2021August 18, 2021

The narrative that young and previously healthy Americans are the “new” pandemic patients is an erasure of Latino victims.

News & Politics

Politics of fear: Are youth really to blame for the carjacking spike?

by Maya Dukmasova April 28, 2021August 18, 2021

Cops say masked teens with a thirst for violence and joyrides are terrorizing the city. An examination of arrests reveals a narrative built on shoddy data and anecdotal evidence.

News & Politics

This is not an artist retreat

by Mads Horwath March 17, 2021August 18, 2021

Reflections on a year in lockdown

Mayor Lightfoot and CPS officials almost have me persuaded to wait out the pandemic in a grade-school cafeteria. It's perfectly safe!

Columns & Opinion

Back to the petri dish

by Ben Joravsky January 27, 2021August 18, 2021

With threats of termination, Mayor Lightfoot and Janice Jackson welcome teachers back to the classroom.

The corporate-backed House vote to impeach Trump a second time is more proof of who's really in charge in Washington.

Columns & Opinion

Who’s really controlling Trump’s impeachment

by Leonard C. Goodman January 19, 2021August 18, 2021

Don’t be fooled that their motives are moral.

Pharmacist Tim Riley is one of more than a million workers who have kept showing up to work in person to keep the economy going.

News & Politics

Tell us what you need as an essential worker

by Reader staff January 7, 2021August 18, 2021

Essential workers have kept our economy going; now we want to hear what they need to keep going.

News & Politics

A year like no other

by Maya Dukmasova, Karen Hawkins, Adam M. Rhodes, Brianna Wellen, Salem Collo-Julin, Leor Galil, Taryn Allen and Sujay Kumar December 21, 2020August 18, 2021

On the violence, sadness, and hope of 2020

Columns & Opinion

Looking ahead

by Ben Joravsky December 21, 2020August 18, 2021

I think we can all agree the next year has got to be better.

News & Politics

The COVID-canceled sports league that still made the streets unsafe

by Adam Mahoney December 17, 2020August 18, 2021

Members of the Chicago Police Enforcers football team have been involved in more than 200 incidents where they’ve injured civilians through use of force.