Champaign County Lawmakers Want COVID-19 Mitigation Exceptions
Sen. Scott Bennett (D-Champaign) says Governor Pritzker’s mitigations are hurting Champaign County’s efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19. He says between the number of tests being conducted at the University of Illinois and the enforcement of mitigations so far, the county’s rate is low enough to allow some indoor service at restaurants and bars.
One could argue Champaign County is doing everything right during the COVID-19 era. And at least two lawmakers from the Champaign-Urbana area say the state should be rewarding businesses and restaurants with decreased mitigations.
Officials from the local Public Health District to the cities of Champaign and Urbana to the State’s Attorney and courts have been cracking down on restaurants and bars that have continued to operate in resistance to mitigations issued by Governor JB Pritzker.
Now, as Pritzker says he won’t reassess reduction of mitigations until after the New Year, lawmakers say the Governor should reconsider.
State Senator Scott Bennett (D-Champaign), who represents the majority of Champaign and Urbana, says rapid testing of thousands of University of Illinois students and staff, and the dramatically low positivity rate that has come with it, shows the area is far and away better off than other counties in the state-selected “region” Champaign County was lumped into.
“I don’t think it is fair. And if you look at Champaign [County], I hear a lot ‘hey, we’re the only county that’s enforcing these rules,” he said. “I do think you have to reward those restaurants in those areas that have done everything they’ve been asked to do and the numbers show it works.
The state has even excluded the University of Illinois rapid tests in computing the positivity rate for the entire region.
The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District reports the 7-day rolling positivity rate in the county, even without the U of I tests, is down to 6.0%, two points below the level of the Governor’s initial mitigations. With the University testing, Champaign County is down to 1.6%.
The entirety of region 6, which stretches from Iroquois to Lawrence counties along the Indiana line, is still over 8% when University of Illinois tests are excluded.
Both Bennett and State Senator Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet) says the Governor needs to be more flexible with his mitigations, especially in a place like Champaign County. Rose says Pritzker’s hardened approach to mitigations is hurting people.
“The Governor’s rule, that he invented, that the scientists said are the rules show this low rate,” he said. “He’s not even following his own rules. How does he choose which scientifically valid tests he uses and ignores? It’s the most arbitrary and ridiculous thing ever. Instead, thousands of people are out of work because he won’t adhere to the rules he created. I’ve got single moms who can’t put food on their table at Christmastime because he won’t adhere to the rules he and his scientists came up with.”
Rose says Pritzker is refusing to count 10,000 tests a day by excluding the University of Illinois results.
Pritzker said last week because of an expected post-Thanksgiving and potential post-Christmas surge he would keep the entire state under the most restrictive mitigations available short of a stay-at-home order.