(The Center Square) – As neighboring states open more things, some Illinois businesses are sitting idle or working with capacity limits set by the governor.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker was out demonstrating on the streets with scores of others over the weekend.
Every region of Illinois in the governor’s phased-in reopening plan meant to combat the spread of COVID-19 is set to enter Phase 4, if it weren’t for the four-week approach.
State Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, said there’s nothing in stone requiring Illinois wait until June 26th to open things up more, especially with summertime activities and jobs.
“I think the governor needs to act more quickly to open things up,” Butler said. “I think he needs to reevaluate the 28-day phases and really get people back to work as soon as possible.”
The governor’s plan has all four regions in Phase 3. To get to the next phase, the plan says is driven by the positivity rate and hospital surge capacity. Some metrics include having under a 20 percent positivity rate for two weeks and no overall increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations for 28 days and surge capacity of at least 14 percent for ICU beds ventilators.
All indications for the four regions on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard are green, signaling progress.
In Madison County, where officials approved their own reopening plan weeks ago, board member Chris Guy said the COVID-19 stats are promising.
“I know the governor has been cautious and we suspected that in the beginning in March but I think it’s time to, he’s got enough data to look at now, it’s time to move into the next phase and let people open up,” Guy said.
Guy said neighboring states are opened up and it’s only fair and reasonable to allow things like restaurants to open more fully.
In the Southern Region, where Madison County is located, they have a positivity rate of 4 percent, which is down 2 percent over 14 days.
In the Central Region, where Springfield is located, the positivity rate is 2 percent and is down 1 percent over two weeks. There’s also been a 56 percent decline in hospital admissions in the past 28 days in the Central Region.
Butler said Springfield should be a good barometer, given the protests with hundreds of gatherers over the span of more than a month at the state capitol.
“We’re the home of a lot of the protests because we’re in the capital city here in Springfield,” Butler said. “And we haven’t seen a spike in cases.”
Pritzker said Monday there have been outbreaks from protests to reopen Illinois more than a month ago, defining outbreaks as where there are two or more cases at a facility or among a group of people. He attended rallies in the Chicago area over the weekend.
“I worry about the thousands of thousands of people who were in close quarters with one another, though they were outside,” Pritzker said.
The subject matter of the protests aside, Butler said people who’ve been kept from working during the COVID-19 shutdowns are perplexed watching recent protests.
“Public officials will go out to these and yet public officials are telling people you can’t gather in groups of more than 10. I think people have a hard time understanding why we can’t have larger gatherings when you see public officials show up at protests.”
Butler said he’s not aware of any spike in cases from protests from more than a month ago calling for Illinois to reopen, signaling to him its time to get things opened back up.
Hospital data for the central region two weeks after the first large Reopen Illinois protests May 1 in Springfield shows a decline in use. The decline in hospitalizations continued the decline through the rest of May into early June.
The governor’s plan has other parameters to get to Phase 4, where restaurants can have limited dine-in service and groups of 50 or fewer will be allowed, among other provisions. Getting there requires the regions to have COVID-19 testing available regardless of symptoms or risk factors and to have contact tracing within 24 hours of diagnosis for 90 percent of cases in the region.
It’s unclear where the regions are in meeting those guidelines.
