Springfield, West Central Illinois Hit With COVID-19 Mitigations
The popular Obed & Issac’s Microbrewery in downtown Springfield. Springfield is the latest area to face indoor bar and restaurant closures by Governor JB Pritzker.
Springfield, Jacksonville, Quincy, and much of west central Illinois are the latest areas to face additional mitigations from Governor JB Pritzker for rising COVID-19 positivity rates.
The state announced Thursday that, effective Sunday morning, bars and restaurants would be banned from indoor service and groups would be limited to no more than 25 people. Hancock, Adams, Pike, Calhoun, Jersey, Greene, Scott, Brown, Schuyler, Cass, Morgan, Macoupin, Montgomery, Christian, Sangamon, Logan, Menard, and Mason counties are impacted by Pritzker’s latest ruling.
The latest region is the ninth of 11 in the Governor’s “Restore Illinois” plan to face tougher mitigation.
“Something has got to give, and these mitigations aim to cut down on those high-risk activities until we bring down the positivity rate in an area once again,” said Pritzker. “Well-meaning and reasonable people can have fair disagreements about how and where to draw lines and connect dots, but when every single metric in every single corner of the state is trending poorly, we have to take meaningful action to keep our people safe.”
House Republicans, meanwhile, continue to beat the drum against Pritzker’s actions. House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) held a news conference criticizing the Governor Wednesday and three others, Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville), Rep. Tim Butler (R-Springfield), and Rep. Mike Murphy (R-Springfield) are scheduled to host a news conference Thursday afternoon demanding Pritzker release more data behind the closures.
Butler was recently diagnosed with COVID-19.
State officials are adamant the public needs to take action to stop the spread of the latest wave of the coronavirus.
“For those residents living in regions and communities where the virus didn’t seem to be ‘that bad,’ things are changing with positivity rates steadily increasing,” said Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “We’ve seen regions move into and then out of mitigation, so we know the measures work. The more people adhere to the measures, the quicker we can move out of mitigation.”