Pritzker Won’t Consider Re-opening Restaurants for Indoor Service Until After Holidays
Outdoor diners in downtown Champaign. Champaign-Urbana has become the epicenter of challenges to and enforcement of, Governor Pritzker’s executive orders.
Three of the regions in the Governor’s “Restore Illinois” plan have met the criteria laid out to start stepping back from current Tier 3 mitigations, but Governor JB Pritzker says the regions won’t be allowed to open restaurants and bars to indoor seating until at least after the holidays.
The Illinois Department of Public Health website lists the requirements to reduce mitigations plainly:
“For Tier 3 mitigation metrics to be relaxed (i.e., move to Tier 2), a region must experience less than 12% test positivity rate (7-day rolling average) for three consecutive days, AND greater than 20% percent available intensive care unit (ICU) and medical/surgical bed availability (3-day rolling average) for three consecutive days, AND decline in the number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital (7-day rolling average) in 7 out of the last 10 days. Each of these metrics is described in more details in the methodology section on this page.”
Three regions, Region 9, in McHenry and Lake Counties and Region 6, which reaches from Ford & Iroquois Counties in the north, south through Champaign-Urbana, Charleston, Effingham, south to Richland and Lawrence counties have met the requirements to begin to reduce restrictions. Region 1, in northwest Illinois, including Rockford, DeKalb, and Galena, is the latest region to meet the criteria for rollbacks.
Governor JB Pritzker said Thursday fears over post-Thanksgiving and Christmas surges has postponed any reductions in mitigations.
“A couple of weeks ago, we basically stepped back from taking regions out of Tier 3 in hopes that we could bring the numbers down significantly across the state,” Pritzker said. “They’re coming down, not by enormous numbers, but they’re going the right direction, and we’re very hopeful things will continue in the right direction.”
In some downstate communities, restaurant owners have been fighting the Governor’s Executive Order, in some cases leading to court showdowns over whether or not they can remain open.
Mike Madigan of Urbana owns and operates Hickory River Smokehouse restaurants in Urbana, Decatur, Springfield, and Peoria. He is frustrated that the Governor put his own metrics aside.
“This just goes to show us all the Governor is more interested in control than "following the science" and standing by his own word about regional metrics for controlling the virus,” he said. “It is very disappointing that so many small businesses and their employees are having to endure this, especially during the holidays. But honestly, I didn't expect anything different. I've told lots of folks who were encouraged by Champaign County and surrounding counties' numbers that he will use holiday gatherings as his excuse for continuing this shutdown, which is killing our economy into next year. And now he has.”
Pritzker says while the state isn’t sticking with original metrics, he wants frustrated people to know they’re following advice from the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and others.
“[People] should know that we’re following the science,” said Pritzker. “We need to be deeply concerned about the gatherings people may have around the holidays and so that’s why we made the decisions that we did.”
Pritzker says he’s hopeful as long as regions don’t see further surges after the holidays that he’ll begin to roll back mitigations.
“That’s my hope, absolutely,” he said. “I want, as much as anybody else, to open up as many things as we possibly can safely.”