Amid national spikes of COVID-19 cases, Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot issued a lockdown to be enacted on Monday November 16, and local and state leaders nationwide are urging residents to stay home, while issuing new restrictions.
Lightfoot announced on Twitter, “A stay-at-home Advisory for Chicago will go into effect on Monday.” The Mayor’s advisory comes in response to the surge of COVID-19 cases through Chicago, and a day after the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) advised residents to stay and work from home. “For the next three weeks, work with your employer to plan to work from home unless it is necessary for you to be in the workplace. We ask employers to make accommodation for this,” IDPH stated.
The Mayor’s advisory calls on all Chicago residents to do the following: “Stay home unless for essential reasons, stop having guests over-including family members you do not live with, avoid non-essential travel, cancel traditional Thanksgiving plans,” according to chicago.gov.
Last month, according to IDPH, Chicago had an average of 500 cases. However, on Thursday, November 13th, the average number has increased to 1,920 daily new cases. IDPH also reported that there are 12,657 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, including 145 additional deaths.
Other states have also been experiencing an increase in COVID-19 cases. Last week, according to Johns Hopkins University data, California joined Texas with one million recorded COVID-19 cases. In the midst of high hospitalization rates, Texas has extended the lockdown through early December. In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine, announced new restrictions on gatherings and a stronger mask mandate as daily cases continue to break records in the state. The state of Utah declared a state of emergency as the hospitals reached full capacity.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that gatherings and travel in and out of communities present a high risk of spreading the infection. In addition, in the midst of a pandemic and the rising of the COVID-19, people are advised to not attend even small gatherings that mix households or require travel to areas that are experiencing high rates of positivity.
As the number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Chicago, some people are frustrated. They said that during last week’s announcement of President-Elect Joe Biden’s win on the presidential election, people were out celebrating and dancing in the street. However, some did not wear masks and were not social distancing. Noel Raheem, a resident from Chicago, said that many people in her area “haven’t been showing any consideration to the pandemic and still continue to gather and visit each other as if the virus has vanished.”