Illinois’ stay-at-home order extended through May — and you’ll need to wear a mask, too
After several days of foreshadowing, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Thursday he will extend a statewide stay-at-home order through May.
“I’m not in the business of comparing suffering in a pandemic. Everyone is allowed to hurt,” Pritzker said at his daily press briefing in Chicago. “But we have the opportunity to prevent the pain of loss from touching the lives of thousands.”
The existing executive order expires April 30 and the new directive, effective May 1, includes modifications.
- OUTDOOR RECREATION: State parks will begin a phased re-opening under guidance from the Department of Natural Resources. Fishing and boating in groups of no more than two people will be permitted. A list of parks that will be open on May 1 and additional guidelines can be found on the Illinois Department of Natural Resources website here. Golf will be permitted under strict safety guidelines provided by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and when ensuring that social distancing is followed.
- NEW ESSENTIAL BUSINESSES: Greenhouses, garden centers and nurseries may re-open as essential businesses. These stores must follow social distancing rules and must require that employees and customers wear a face covering. Animal grooming services may also re-open.
- NON-ESSENTIAL RETAIL: Retail stores not designated as non-essential businesses and operations may re-open to fulfill telephone and online orders through pick-up outside the store and delivery.
- FACE COVERINGS: Beginning on May 1, individuals will be required to wear a face-covering or a mask when in a public place where they can’t maintain a six-foot social distance. Face-coverings will be required in public indoor spaces, such as stores. This new requirement applies to all individuals over the age of two who are able to medically tolerate a face-covering or a mask.
- ESSENTIAL BUSINESSES AND MANUFACTURING: Essential businesses and manufacturers will be required to provide face-coverings to all employees who are not able to maintain six-feet of social distancing, as well as follow new requirements that maximize social distancing and prioritize the well-being of employees and customers. This will include occupancy limits for essential businesses and precautions such as staggering shifts and operating only essential lines for manufacturers.
- SCHOOLS: Educational institutions may allow and establish procedures for pick-up of necessary supplies or student belongings. Dormitory move-outs must follow public health guidelines, including social distancing.
Illinois GOP leader Jim Durkin praised the modifications, but said they were not enough.
“We must do more to restore economic vitality of the state while maintaining the health and safety of our citizens,” Durkin said.
Pritzker said he understands the pain residents and businesses are experiencing, but said deaths and infections will increase if the state lifts orders too soon.
“For every person who wants to go to dinner or hang out with friends in a park or swing open their salon doors, there is a family mourning the death of someone they love,” Pritzker said.
Updated COVID-19 modeling
Pritzker explained how he uses modeling, or information about the virus’ spread, to inform his decision.
In the beginning of the pandemic the government had to use estimates based on the course of the virus in other countries. Now the state can evaluate models based on data collected over the past two months.
“The picture painted by modeling gets better when it’s based off of what’s actually happening on the ground in Illinois, data that can only be gathered with the passage of time,” Pritzker said.
But two months is not a lot of time “in the world of modeling,” the governor added. Models become more accurate with time because the more facts available, the better the ability to predict outcomes. Modeling is never exact, however.
State officials at first predicted coronavirus could peak in April, but that prediction proved incorrect. Now, officials believe it could peak in late April or early May with continued stay-at-home orders. Even that prediction could change depending on how people behave.
Nigel Goldenfeld, a physics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, compared modeling to attempting to determine the trajectory of a rocket if “you don’t know where it started from, in what direction it was pointing and how much fuel it had on board, and you can’t even see the rocket.”
“Modeling is not rocket science. It’s harder,” Goldenfeld said.
Because the laws of a pandemic’s trajectory are still unknown, mathematics are the only way to track it.
Those mathematical models show lifting the stay-at-home orders across the board this week would result in a second wave of infections, hospitalizations and deaths, Pritzker said in making his case for the decision.
Without stay-at-home orders, 10 to 20 times as many people would have died from COVID-19, according to the modeling, which was developed by researchers at four universities, the department of public health and two consulting firms.
Projections show it will take longer for the number of deaths to decrease than it took for them to rise.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Northwestern School of Medicine, the University of Chicago, the Chicago and Illinois Departments of Public Health, McKinsey and Mier Consulting Group, and data analytics firm Civis Analytics worked on the modeling.
During the state’s daily COVID-19 news conference Thursday, officials announced 1,826 new cases of coronavirus in Illinois, including 123 additional deaths. That brings the statewide total of positive coronavirus cases to 36,934 cases, including 1,688 deaths, in 96 counties.
While Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said “most businesses” would reopen after May 4, St. Louis City and County extended their stay-at-home orders indefinitely.
Southwestern Illinois coronavirus cases by county
Here’s a breakdown of the number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 in southwestern Illinois as of Wednesday:
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 2:46 PM.
