Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is expected to announce a new reopening plan later this week that could eventually bring the state back to normal, but under new guidelines.
Currently, Illinois is under Phase 4 of the Restore Illinois plan announced by the governor early in the pandemic last year. The next phase is Phase 5, which marks a full reopening, but requires a widely available vaccine or highly effective treatment for coronavirus.
But at a meeting of the Senate Health Committee on Monday, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, that a new reopening plan could be announced “later this week.”
According to the Chicago Tribune, Ezike said that “there may be another phase” between phase 4 and phase 5. Few details have been revealed, but one thing is certain: masks will continue to be mandated in the state, she said, adding that “masks must remain a mainstay.”
A spokesman for the governor confirmed that Pritzker has “been in discussions with industry and health experts.”
Earlier this month, Texas became the largest state to lift its mask rule, joining a burgeoning movement of US governors and other leaders to ease COVID-19 restrictions, despite pleas from health officials to keep their guard up. to lower.
Mississippi government Tate Reeves said he is scrapping most of the mask mandates he had imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus. It also removes most other restrictions, including restaurant seating restrictions.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey also announced that she will extend the state’s mask mandate until April 9, but will lift the order after that date.
As vaccinations for the coronavirus in Illinois proliferate and eligibility increases, a full reopening is near, but Pritzker has repeatedly said the state is not there yet.
“You know, I said from the start that we need an effective vaccine that we can distribute widely and a very effective or very effective treatment that we could distribute widely and we are coming,” Pritzker said earlier. . month. “I mean … about one in seven Illinois residents has their first dose already in their arms. We need to get closer to the immunity of the herd so everyone can feel, you know, that we’re past stage four and that. we will actually be able to open everything all over again. “
Herd immunity is defined by the World Health Organization as ‘when a population is immune from vaccination or immunity developed from previous infection’, although the group notes that for coronavirus such immunity must be ‘achieved by protecting humans through vaccination,’ not by exposing them. to the pathogen causing the disease. ”
The exact amount of herd immunity needed to reopen further remains unclear, especially as concerns are growing about variants of the virus emerging in the US and around the world and whether current vaccines will continue to provide protection.
“We are still learning about immunity to COVID-19,” reports the WHO. “Most people infected with COVID-19 develop an immune response within the first few weeks, but we don’t know how strong or persistent that immune response is, or how it differs for different people. There have also been reports of people infected with COVID. -19 for a second time. Until we better understand COVID-19 immunity, it will not be possible to know how much of a population is immune and how long that immunity lasts, let alone make future predictions. “
However, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the city could see a summer more like “what we normally experience,” and the governor’s office noted that McCormick Place could also bring back some events.
“We know so much more about the virus, how it spreads, than we did a year ago,” said Lightfoot last week. “We know about external events in particular – that we can manage them in a safe way that is in line with public health guidelines. So, as I said, I think the summer of 2021 is more like what we normally experienced. . “
Illinois lifted its tiered mitigation plan earlier this year and returned all regions to the Phase 4 guidelines as cases and hospitalizations in the state continue to decline steadily. The transition to phase 4 brought back dining in and reopened several businesses, while capacity limits were expanded in others.
The first coronavirus vaccinations were administered in Illinois in January when health professionals and residents and long-term care staff began to receive doses.
Since then, the state has entered the next phase of vaccine introduction called Phase 1B, opening up vaccines to essential workers and residents 65 and older. That group expanded to include people aged 16 and older with certain high-risk medical conditions and co-morbidities. Chicago, along with several suburban and healthcare systems, chose not to enter the expanded phase, citing limitations with the offering.
On Monday, Pritzker said Illinois has plans to surpass President Joe Biden’s pledge to make all adults eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine by May 1.
“I just think people should start thinking a lot about … the fact that we’re opening this up to everyone relatively sooner than I think people expected,” Pritzker said during a one-on-one interview with NBC. 5’s Mary Ann Ahern.
In total, Illinois has received 5,038,635 doses of the vaccine and a total of 4,102,810 have been administered in the state.