Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said Thursday the state is in the last mile of its marathon response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While it ain’t over yet, Governor JB Pritzker has outlined the route to the finish line that will, hopefully, get us all back to pre-pandemic life.

“The light we can see at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and brighter as more people get vaccinated,” Pritzker said during a news conference in Chicago. “I’m more optimistic today than I’ve been at any time over the last year.”

All of Illinois is in “Phase 4” of the pandemic restrictions with limited capacity at restaurants, businesses and large gatherings. “Phase 5” is when the restrictions go away. In the meantime, Pritzker announced a “bridge” between those two phases where businesses and convention planners could wind up operations while the pandemic winds down.

“It’s time to begin to cautiously move toward normalcy,” he said. “It’s imperative that we do so in a way that maintains all the progress that we’ve made to date. As we’ve seen, there’s more to a strong economy than just ending capacity restrictions. People have to be safe and they have to feel safe too.”

The Governor said Illinois will get to the bridge phase when 70 percent of people over the age of 65 have had at least one dose of a vaccine. So far 58 percent of seniors statewide have at least one dose of the vaccine.

When the threshold is met, the capacity limits for most retail businesses, offices, gyms, and salons will increase to 60%. The largest change would be allowing conventions up to 1,000 people if space permits. The full guidance can be found here.

Pritzker didn’t give a firm date on when the bridge level might as vaccination numbers go up and down, but it could happen in about two weeks at the current pace of 100,000 doses given a week.

Once half of all Illinoisans 16 years old and above have had one dose, Illinois can enter Phase 5. So far 28 percent of adults in the state have had one dose.

Pritzker also announced Thursday all Illinoisans over the age of 16 would be eligible to get the vaccine beginning April 12. The Biden Administration’s deadline to open vaccinations to all adults is May 1.

“These vaccines are our fastest ticket back to hugging our grandkids, eating in restaurants without worrying about the risks, school dances, community celebrations, all the things that we miss about normal life,” he said.

Pritzker praised the Biden Administration for dramatically increasing the number of doses sent to the state each week. Illinois has gone from 109,000 doses a week in December to more than 800,000 currently. The governor said he expected the state to receive a million doses a week by the time all adults will be eligible.

Just because people will be eligible to receive the vaccine next month, doesn’t mean they’ll get it right away.

“Because the supplies are ramping up at a good clip, we believe we can take away that confusion (of who’s eligible and who’s not) and allow people to get an appointment relatively fast after we start on April 12th opening up to everyone,” the Governor said.

In the meantime, masks will still be required. Pritzker’s mask mandate is in effect until June 3, though he could cancel it early.

“Wearing the mask is not going to be forever but until more people are vaccinated, this will be the path forward,” Ezike said. “We cannot lose our momentum. To do this, we will continue to wear our masks. We absolutely will not have any mask burning parties. We in Illinois know the importance of masks. We know we still need to avoid crowds as much as possible and keep our distance.”

The dialing back of restrictions was praised by industry groups for retailers, hotels, and restaurants.

“This guidance is especially important to small businesses and our tourism, conventions and hospitality industries, which have been devastated by the pandemic with thousands of businesses closing their doors, resulting in tens of thousands of people losing their jobs,” said Jack Lavin, President & CEO, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. “While the road to recovery is long, we applaud the governor for outlining metrics and creating a path forward for the business community to get people back to work and jumpstart our economy,”

As one would expect, the news was praised by Democrats in the General Assembly and panned by Republicans.

“Under the Governor’s continued go-it-alone plan, Illinois remains one of the most restrictive states in the nation, yet we still have one of the highest death rates per capita,” said State Senator Dave Syverson (R-Rockford). “It’s clear, the current approach is not working. We need to open up our state and return to normalcy. It’s time to set aside politics, look at the science and recognize what’s working in other states that are open and thriving.”

When pressed for examples of states Syverson believes are thriving, a spokesperson gave Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas and Florida as examples. Those are states where restrictions have either been mostly or entirely lifted. The spokesperson said Syverson believes the Governor should be more transparent about which data was used to set the new restrictions.

The Pritzker Administration said “the Bridge Phase is based on science and was developed by health experts” but didn’t go into more detail than that. It said the bridge phase would allow Illinois to reopen “without prematurely embracing a reckless reopening”.

“Because of the steps Illinois took, our state never ran out of hospital beds or ventilators or doctors to care for patients even when other states did,” Pritzker said. “If you were a car accident victim, or experiencing a heart attack, or in need of cancer treatment, or a mother in labor or sick with COVID and gasping for air, there was always a hospital to treat you even in the worst moments.”

The progress isn’t guaranteed to be linear, though. Ezike said state health officials would be tracking ICU bed availability, COVID-19 hospitalizations and the death rate as the restrictions are dialed back. If the state starts trending in the wrong direction, Phase 4 restrictions could go back into place for a period of ten days.

With more than 4 million doses already in the arms of Illinoisans, a quarter of adults vaccinated and hospitalizations a small fraction of what it was during the peak of the pandemic in November, Pritzker believes there’s reason for optimism.

“We’re really headed on a very good trajectory to get to Phase 5,” Pritzker said.

Illinois has a path to normal outlined. It’s just a matter of how quickly the state can get there.

Ben Garbarek

@bengarbarek ben@theillinoize.com