With the coronavirus flaring to dangerous highs yet again across the United States, it’s now easier to list the states that aren’t on Chicago’s travel quarantine list than those that are.
The Chicago Department of Public added five states to its emergency travel order Tuesday, raising the number of destinations to 30 states and Puerto Rico.
The latest hot-spot states are Colorado, Ohio, Delaware, West Virginia and Texas.
Anyone coming to Chicago from those areas should self-isolate for 14 days upon arriving in the city.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office instituted the travel order in July, when Chicago and Illinois were faring well in the pandemic relative to surging states across the South and West.
But for over a month, Illinois itself has met the city’s criteria to be included on the quarantine list. On average, Illinois has added about 29 cases per 100,000 residents on over the last week, nearly double the threshold rate set by Lightfoot’s health team.
And Indiana and Wisconsin are still on the list as testing positivity rates have soared across the Midwest in the last two weeks, turning the region into a focal point of the nation’s COVID-19 resurgence.
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Also on Tuesday, the Illinois Department of Public Health announced 3,714 more people have tested positive for the virus statewide among the latest 59,077 tests submitted to the state.
That raised the state’s average testing positivity rate over the last week to 5.5%, as high as it has been since early June. That number, which indicates how rapidly the virus is spreading, was just 3.3% on Oct. 4.
The virus also claimed 41 more lives, raising the state’s death toll to 9,277. More than 350,000 people have contracted the virus among almost 6.9 million tests administered since March.
The situation in Illinois has deteriorated to the point Gov. J.B. Pritzker is re-instituting his daily coronavirus briefings beginning Tuesday afternoon. The Democratic governor put those on hold at the end of May as infection rates fell when the state entered its third reopening phase.
About two weeks into the second surge, Chicago remains in what city Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady calls the “yellow phase,” which requires public health officials to “pause and monitor.” But without a dramatic turnaround, “we are absolutely gonna be in the red phase,” with further restrictions, Arwady said Monday.
“This has me — and it should have you — very concerned,” she said. “If it is not essential, do not invite people to your home who do not already live there… If it is essential, you must wear a mask, even in your own home.”
The other states on Chicago’s quarantine list are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.
City officials say only six states nationwide saw case counts decrease over the last week: California, Oregon, Hawaii, Vermont, Louisiana and Kentucky.
The city says it has issued warnings, but no fines yet, to people flouting the travel quarantine order. Essential workers are exempt.
