Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has recently cultivated an image as a stern administrator who implores people to “stay home and save lives.” Memes and mainstream media outlets have portrayed her as a tough leader willing to make the difficult but necessary decision of stamping the fun out of urban life in order to blunt the spread of coronavirus.

But there is much more to Lightfoot’s pandemic response than memeable administrator. For example, as the outbreak began to spread across the city, a February 26 Chicago Sun-Times headline announced, “Lightfoot accuses CDC of spreading panic about the coronavirus,” quoting the mayor as saying “I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves and suggest to the public that there’s a reason for them to be fearful . . . we need people to continue to go about their daily lives.” At the time, many mayors and elected leaders across the country were not taking the virus as seriously as they should have. Yet Lightfoot went further, refusing to close public schools despite pleas from the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and other groups concerned about the safety of students and teachers.

As the Sun-Times recently reported, Lightfoot had to be pressured by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to cancel the city’s massive St. Patrick’s Day parade on March 14, and only gave in on shuttering schools after the governor ordered them closed in mid March. (Pritzker did, however, go forward with the state’s in-person election on March 17, which undoubtedly increased the spread of the virus.)