CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — With nearly 3,000 new COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said stricter mitigations could be on the horizon.
“We're consistently looking at the menu of options that we may need to impose in order to bring down the numbers,” Pritzker said during a press conference Tuesday morning.
Right now all but one of Illinois’ 102 counties are in a “high transmission rate: and the Illinois Department of Public Health reported the seven-day rolling COVID-19 case positivity rate is 5%.
Pritzker warned the state’s previous phases could be back on the table if the surge in COVID-19 cases doesn’t get under control.
“If we are not able to bring these numbers down, if the hospital beds and ICU get full, like they are in Kentucky, that's just next door to Illinois, if that happens, we're going to have to impose significantly greater mitigations,” said Pritzker.
The governor highlighted COVID-19 safety measures currently in place in Illinois including the vaccination requirement for nursing home staff and state employees who work in congregate settings as well as the indoor mask mandate for schools.
However, dozens of school districts have defied the governor’s mandate and are leaving the masking decision up to parents.
When asked if he was really going to follow through on withdrawing funding, taking away sports and denying high school diplomas for those districts, Pritzker responded: “Am I really going to do that? Yes, we are really going to do that.”
The governor continued, referencing the uptick in COVID-19 cases happening around the country.
“Look at all of the other states around the country where schools have reopened and now you've seen schools close right back up again, or have massive numbers of kids who need to stay at home because they've caught COVID or because they've been exposed to COVID. So let's get serious about this,” said Pritzker.
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