With statewide measurements appearing to gradually improve, when will Illinois see indoor meals return?
According to Governor JB Pritzker, the answer is not so concrete.
Illinois is currently under Level 3 mitigations, but even if the state returns to Level 2 mitigations, indoor meals will still be suspended.
It is not until Level 1 that indoor meals can return with capacity limitations, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health website.
“What we don’t want is to go back and forth between levels 3 and 2 and that wouldn’t open bars and restaurants anyway,” said Pritzker on Wednesday. “We want to open everything as quickly as possible. We are generally moving in the right direction.”
Pritzker noted that while some metrics have declined, hospitalizations have increased in the past few days, increasing by more than 100.
“This is worrying,” said the governor. “So let’s keep an eye on that. I’m the first to want to move the regions down to Level 2 and Level 1 and back to Phase 4 as soon as possible, but we also want to make sure that we crush this growing number of cases and hospitalizations and we don’t have, as we have now, a very, very large number of ICU patients. ”
Pritzker said he plans to watch the numbers during the holiday.
“I believe we will get there soon and we want to see what the Christmas and New Year holidays will be like,” he said.
The comments were made just a day after the United States surgeon general, Jerome Adams, joined the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, and the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, Dr. Allison Arwady, to discuss city and state vaccine distribution plans.
During a news conference after visiting a Chicago hospital, which he said had reached capacity in his intensive care unit due in part to the coronavirus pandemic, Adams issued a harsh holiday alert.
“Even if you don’t personally feel at risk because of COVID, your actions can still have an impact on you, your family and your community in other ways that you might not imagine,” he said after a visit to Hospital Santo Antônio. “This crowded ICU is full because there are COVID patients pushing it over. But that means that if you have a heart attack, there may be no space at the end. That means if you get into a car accident on an icy road , they may not have a bed for you. That means if your sister or your wife goes into labor, there may not be room in the hospital for you, so it’s critical that we continue this holiday season to do the things that are working. ”
Adams said that although Illinois is “happily moving in the right direction … the numbers are still not where we need them to be”. He said that while the start of vaccines is the beginning of the end, residents must “remain vigilant”.
“Even if you weren’t doing the safest thing we recommend and keeping it inside your home, things like being quarantined now – because every person you interact with now is a person whose bubble has now infiltrated your bubble and potential to you take the virus home to someone this Christmas – things like making sure you have enough ventilation in your home environment, and making sure you have enough hand sanitizer and that people are practicing good hand hygiene, “he said. Adams. “Once again, we want you to be as safe as possible. But if you can’t keep it inside your home, we still want you to think about how you can have a safer vacation season. I want you to have hope because so much A lot of people are asking when this is going to end and I want you to know that I am incredibly optimistic based on these two vaccines now available, that we have a finish line in sight. ”
In the first full week of vaccination, Illinois administered most doses of the COVID-19 vaccine compared to any other state in the country, officials announced on Wednesday.
In his coronavirus briefing, Pritzker said that Illinois, including Chicago, administered 100,991 doses of the vaccine on Tuesday night, the highest amount of any US state.
“By the total population, California is three times our size and Texas is two and a half times ours, so they will outnumber us sometime this week,” said Pritzker. “But the vaccination team in Illinois went through them all in the first week.”
This week alone, Pritzker said that Illinois received 23,400 doses of Pfizer vaccine outside Chicago, 15,600 doses of Pfizer for the city of Chicago and 37,050 doses of Pfizer reserved for long-term vaccinations next week. In addition, the state will receive 174,000 doses of the Modern vaccine outside Chicago and 48,000 doses directly to the city.
Still, state health officials reported 6,762 new cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, along with 135 additional deaths attributed to the virus.
The latest figures from the Illinois Department of Public Health bring the Illinois total across the state to 918,070 probable or confirmed cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began.
The additional 135 deaths on Wednesday bring the state to 15,547 deaths as a result of the pandemic, according to IDPH data.
The state’s positivity rate for exams was 9%, the same as the previous day, while the positivity rate for cases was 7.5%, slightly above 7.4% on Tuesday.
The state saw its number of hospitalizations increase slightly again on Wednesday, with 4,593 hospitalized patients. Of these, 953 are currently in intensive care units and 536 in ventilators.