Rockford Area Hit With Additional COVID-19 Restrictions
Rockford’s Main Street District, home to many bars and restaurants. (SOURCE: Rockford Register-Star)
Governor JB Pritzker’s Administration and the Illinois Department of Public Health have hit the northwest region of Illinois with additional COVID-19 restrictions following a more than 2% increase in positive tests in the past two weeks.
The additional mitigations impact Boone, Carroll, DeKalb, Jo Daviess, Lee, Ogle, Stephenson, Whiteside, and Winnebago counties, including Rockford, Galena, and Dixon. It prohibits indoor service at bars and restaurants, limits social gatherings to no more than 25 people, and closes gaming parlors and casinos at 11pm, limiting their capacity to 25%, as well.
The limits take effect Saturday following three consecutive days of tests over 8% in the region.
“As other regions have demonstrated, stricter mitigations will lead to safer communities when people mask up, keep their distance, wash their hands and respect public health. It is my hope that the residents of Region 1 can turn this situation around quickly,” said Pritzker. He pledged to continue to coordinate with local officials to make that happen.
During a COVID-19 media briefing Wednesday, IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike was asked if restaurants and bars were being singled out by the government.
“The goal isn’t to punish bars and restaurants,” she said. “The goal is to get these numbers down to stop rampant transmission throughout the community.”
Ezike says data coming in from contact tracers shows bars and restaurants are a common place for exposures.
An area in the Metro East, around St. Louis, continues to face mitigation. Officials from St. Clair County have asked to be removed from the district lumping them in with other counties around them, but Pritzker said Wednesday he won’t do that.
The region consisting of Will and Kankakee counties was successfully brought out of mitigation earlier this month.