Pritzker: Stay-at-Home Order "Seems Where We're Heading"
The usually-jammed Union Station in downtown Chicago was nearly abandoned during the first COVID-19 stay-at-home order issued in March. (Photo: WBEZ)
Governor JB Pritzker warned Thursday if COVID-19 infection rates and hospitalizations aren’t curtailed soon, he’ll enact another Stay-at-Home order.
The state was already under lockdown from late March through June 1, but spiking COVID-19 rates in recent weeks left an exasperated Pritzker fearing it may come to the drastic measure again.
“With many community leaders choosing not to listen to the doctors, we are left with not many tools left in our toolbox to fight this,” said Pritzker. “The numbers don’t lie. If things don’t take a turn in the coming days, we will quickly reach the point when some form of a mandatory stay-at-home order is all that will be left. But, right now, that seems where we are heading.”
Cases in the state have exploded in the past 6 weeks. Since October 1, the positivity rate in some of the regions in the Governor’s “Restore Illinois” plan have tripled.
The region in northwest Illinois, containing Rockford, Galena, and DeKalb, leads the state at 18.9% positivity. The region consisting of Will and Kankakee counties is reporting a positivity rate of 18.5%. No region of the state is lower than 12.5%.
“Our growth in new cases is is now exponential,” said Pritzker. “We are seeing current numbers and future projections worse than we saw in the spring.”
Some of the Democratic Governor’s fiercest critics in the legislature chimed in on Pritzker’s dire predictions.
State Representative Darren Bailey (R-Xenia), who will take a seat in the State Senate in January, tweeted following the news conference.
“The Governor is angry at Illinoisans who’ve ignored his efforts, but he regularly ignored the steps and actions taken by the federal government, so he could use the virus for a political attack on a President he dislikes,” he wrote.
Representative Allen Skillicorn (R-East Dundee), who lost his run for re-election this month, called on Republicans to stand up to Pritzker.
“My party needs to take a stand for small government,” he wrote.
Pritzker says he doesn’t want to initiate further restrictions “with every fiber of my being,” but needs the public to start wearing a mask and staying socially distant.