Gov. JB Pritzker has issued an indoor mask mandate, regardless of vaccination status, for all residents of Illinois beginning Aug. 30.
Additionally, all healthcare workers, including nursing home employees, all pre-k-12 teachers and staff, as well as higher education personnel and students will now be required to receive the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by Sept. 5, and the second dose within 30 days.
Employees in all of these settings and higher education students who are unable or unwilling to receive the vaccine will be required to get tested for COVID-19 at least once per week, and DPH and ISBE may require increased testing in certain situations.
While face coverings are not required outdoors, masks are strongly encouraged in crowded outdoor settings like festivals and concerts as well as for activities that require close contact with people who are not vaccinated.
The public health requirements come as regions with low vaccination rates continue to see a surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
In IDPH region 5, Southern Illinois, with the lowest vaccination rate in the state at 44 percent, only 3-percent of ICU beds are available as the region experiences the highest case rate in the state. Since August 1st, local health departments across the state have reported 27 COVID-19 outbreaks at schools and currently hundreds of schools are being monitored for potential COVID-19 exposures.
As of Aug. 35, 2,197 COVID-19 patients were in hospital beds. That’s the highest number of hospitalizations since mid-April. As of Tuesday night, 515 COVID-19 patients were in ICU beds, up from 159 a month earlier.
Locally, in Region 6, which includes Champaign and Vermilion Counties, the positivity rate (excluding UIUC Saliva Tests) has remained over 8-percent since Aug. 16. Carle Foundation Hospital has also seen an increase of COVID-19 patients, and has limited visitors and postponed some elective surgeries.
“Let’s be clear, vaccination is the most effective tool we have for keeping people out of the hospital and preventing deaths,” Pritzker said. “Nearly all Illinoisans who are hospitalized with COVID are the Illinoisans who are not vaccinated. And those hospitalizations are only increasing our ICU usage has multiplied by a factor of seven.
“This summer alone from January through July, 98-percent of our cases are among the unvaccinated. 96-percent of our hospitalizations are among unvaccinated people. 95-percent of our deaths are among unvaccinated people. We are continuing to rely on experts at the CDC and IDPH, but you don’t need to be an epidemiologist to understand what’s going on here. This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. These are preventable deaths and beyond the tragedy of losing lives for no reason.”
Pritzker said the impact reaches beyond those who find themselves in the hospital with COVID-19. Hospital staff is limited, along with space in some of the state’s rural communities.
“And those hospitals are sometimes the least well equipped to handle cases as they become more acute,” he said.
“And (medical professionals) fear the worst is yet to come for us to put it bluntly, because the Delta variant hospitals are again fighting the battle that we had hoped would be behind us by now,” Pritzker said. “I can’t begin to imagine how frustrating this must be for them. They’ve spent 18 months on the frontlines fighting this virus, the tool to bring an end to the pandemic vaccines is readily available, but your neighbors aren’t listening, many because they’re being misled. And then these health care heroes have to put their own health and their family’s lives at risk having to take care of people who could have prevented their serious illness with a simple shot.”
The mandate for vaccination and masks was backed by the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association.
House GOP Leader Jim Durkin asked the Gov. to issue a special session to get input from the General Assembly in a statement released earlier Thursday.
“You are willing to negotiate with your biggest supporters, the public sector unions, on the pandemic response, but still will not listen to the General Assembly or the residents of Illinois most impacted by your actions,” Durkin wrote. “I will reiterate my plea on our call yesterday to please make your experts available to the General Assembly so that we can examine their data and plans, review the results of your many previous mandates and together plot a course of action that will work. You have the authority to call for a Special Session of both Chambers to address this very critical issue, and I am imploring you to do so immediately.”
