Pritzker Threatens More Mitigations If COVID Cases Continue to Spike
Governor JB Pritzker threatened more COVID-19 mitigations Tuesday as cases around the state continue to spike.
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Governor JB Pritzker says he’s continuing to look at new mitigation options to limit the explosion of COVID-19 cases around the state.
“We’re consistently looking at the menu of options that we may need to impose in order to bring down the numbers,” Pritzker said. “If we are not able to bring these numbers down, if hospitals continue to fill, if the hospital beds in ICU’s continue to get full, like they are in Kentucky, if that happens, we’re going to have to impose significantly greater mitigations.”
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported Monday just one ICU bed remained in a 20 county area in southern Illinois, with fewer ICU beds available in many parts of the state.
Speaking at an unrelated news conference yesterday, Pritzker said he believes the state has taken numerous steps to stem the growth of COVID-19 infections, including his Executive Order mandating masks in schools. He says he doesn’t want to go further.
“Those are things we don’t want to go back to,” Pritzker said. “Right now, we want everyone to wear a mask everywhere indoors and, then, we’ve got a variety of mandates already in place.”
Pritzker also said he knows there is a percentage of the population vocally angry with his school mask policy, but he believes the public is on his side.
“I realize there are people who like to show up and shout at their local school boards, at the local school board members,” he said. “But, the reality is the vast majority of people in Illinois want to make sure that the children of Illinois, their parents, their communities, are safe. And having a mask mandate operative in schools will help do that.”
A Chicago talk show host and anti-mask advocate asked Pritzker if his threats to defund public schools that defy his mask mandate and to prevent them from participating in high school sports was a bluff.
“No,” Pritzker said, adamantly.
In fact, the Illinois High School Association, the NGO that oversees high school athletics in the state, voted to ban any school district defying the mask mandate from participating in postseason play.
“The IHSA Board of Directors did not look at this situation as being a pro-mask or anti-mask issue, nor did they view their ruling as any type of political stance,” IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said in a statement. “Setting aside their own personal opinions, they were unanimous in the belief that the IHSA is a rule-driven organization that should continue to align with ISBE rules for the good of its membership. The Board felt that not following the mandate was akin to a team picking and choosing what rules they were going to follow in a football game or volleyball match.”