State tells SW IL officials COVID-19 restrictions will likely be reintroduced Wednesday
Gov. J.B. Pritzker and officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health on Saturday told metro-east leaders to prepare for the reintroduction of tighter COVID-19 restrictions, citing projections that Sunday would be the region’s third consecutive day with a positivity rate over the state-set threshold.
St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency Assistant Director Bryan Whitaker said state officials told counties Sunday’s positivity rate more than likely will be above 8% and asked them to prepare for the restrictions to go into place Wednesday.
“We do anticipate that we’ll have that third day tomorrow and we will have restrictions again in Region 4,” Whitaker said during the county’s daily COVID-19 report. “We’ve dreaded this moment, we didn’t want to come with this information but its important we come together.”
Whitaker said Chairman Mark Kern and Emergency Management Agency Director Herb Simmons, who typically host the daily update, are working to prepare businesses who will be affected by the restrictions for another round of closures. Earlier this week, Kern said many businesses won’t be able to survive another round of restrictions.
The reintroduction of restrictions on indoor dining and bars, would be due to having a COVID-19 positivity rate above 8% for the three days in a row.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported the metro-east’s seven-day rolling average positivity rate increased from 8.1% on Friday to 8.2% on Saturday. If the region reports three consecutive days above 8%, recently eased restrictions could be re-implemented in the seven-county metro-east.
The state eased restrictions on restaurants, bars and social gatherings roughly two weeks ago on Oct. 9, after the metro-east saw its positivity rate fall below 6.5%. Since then the positivity rate has steadily increased nearly every day.
Region 4 includes St. Clair, Madison, Monroe, Bond, Washington, Clinton and Randolph counties. Region 4 also saw a jump in its daily positivity rate from 8.9% on Wednesday to 9.6% on Thursday.
The positivity rate data reported by the state is delayed by three days, so the rate as of Oct. 21 was the most recent data available Saturday.
The region’s hospital bed capacity was at 28% on Saturday, down from 31% Friday, and its ICU capacity was at 52% on Saturday, up from 51% Friday.
If the region’s hospital capacity threatens its surge capacities, meaning if the ICU capacity of hospital bed capacity falls under 20%, new restrictions could also be enacted by the state.
Statewide, Illinois set a record for new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, reporting 6,161 new cases.
This story was originally published October 24, 2020 at 4:28 PM.