CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — During a Q&A portion of a press briefing Monday morning, Gov. J.B. Pritzker was asked how long schools will be required to mandate masks for students and teachers.
His response: “We’re going to be in this for a little while longer, I’m talking about COVID-19 and the challenge that it brings to all of us.”
The governor pointed out a few key factors that would need to change for Illinois to lift its school mask mandate.
“We want to make sure there’s some progress that gets seen in allowing people under 12 to get vaccinated. And to make sure that we see progress in bringing down the number of cases across the state, the positivity rate across the state,” Pritzker said.
As of Monday, Illinois’ seven-day average COVID-19 positivity rate is 5.1%.
Another concern is the rising number of delta variant cases.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reports a total of 1,979 delta variant cases to date.
Pritzker said he expects to see more variants as the pandemic rages on.
“It’s highly likely that a variant you see hitting some other country is going to come to the United States so we have to prepare ourselves for the hopefully ramping down of COVID over a number of months and maybe over the next year but we have to follow the science and we will be requiring people to wear masks in schools to keep our kids safe until we no longer need to,” the governor said.
While not mandated by the state, Pritzker also encouraged Illinois school districts to require vaccinations for all teachers and staff.
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