Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday announced industry-specific rules for the reopening of restaurants, child care facilities and some industries as part of phase three of Chicago’s reemergence from the coronavirus stay-at-home order.
Though Lightfoot has said she expects Chicago to take that step in early June, she has not yet announced a date. Her guidelines come two days after Gov. J.B. Pritzker released his statewide guidelines and said the state is on track to advance to phase three on Friday.
Lightfoot has the authority to set stricter rules for Chicago than Pritzker’s statewide framework, but she can’t enact looser ones.
“Our transition to Phase Three of our reopening framework represents a major step for Chicago and our journey to a safe and successful recovery from the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis,” Lightfoot said in a Tuesday afternoon news release. “These new industry guidelines were developed in close partnership with industry leaders in order to provide as clear of a direction as possible on how to keep both employees and customers safe, but our work is far from over.”
Not included are guidelines for reopening sporting events, bars, religious services, outdoor performances, summer programs and youth activities, the lakefront and museums. Those standards “will be available later in phase three when those entities are predicted to begin reopening,” according to the release.
Among the guidelines at child care facilities, parents and employees will be expected to wear facial coverings at all times. Children will only be expected to do so outside their classrooms.
Restaurants are called on to limit seating to no more than six people per table, limit gatherings to no more than 10 people and space tables 6 feet apart or take them out of commission if they can’t be moved.
The plan for Chicago comes as state health officials announced 1,178 new cases of COVID-19 and 39 additional deaths, bringing the total number of known cases statewide to 113,195 and the death toll to 4,923. Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike, the state’s top public health official, said case numbers were lower in recent days, in part, because fewer tests are processed and reported over weekends. Ezike also said that the week ending in May 16 was the first week with fewer deaths than the previous week since the pandemic began.
Many businesses across Illinois, outside of Chicago, are preparing to reopen at the end of the week as all four regions of the state move into the next phase of Pritzker’s five-phase reopening plan. The governor and Ezike on Tuesday laid out a series of positive developments in the state’s battle with the new coronavirus.
Hospitalizations due to COVID-19, which had been plateauing, have dropped to a six-week low. The percentage of tests for the coronavirus returning positive results statewide has dropped from a high of 23% a month ago to an average of just above 9% over the past seven days.
“We seem to have come off the peak,” Pritzker said at his daily press briefing, the first held in person at the Thompson Center in the Loop since he began self-isolating May 11 after a senior staff member tested positive for the virus. Pritzker held in-person briefings last week and over the weekend at the Capitol in Springfield.
“Barring some catastrophe in the next four days,” Pritzker said, a wider range of businesses — including more retailers, barbershops and salons, and gyms and fitness centers — will be able to reopen Friday under new industry-specific public health guidelines his administration issued Sunday.
While a wide range of business will be open in phase three of Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” plan, there will be big adjustments to pre-coronavirus practices. Barbers and hair stylists and their clients will have to wear masks. Stores only will be able to allow in half as many customers at a time. Restaurants will be able to resume outdoor dining, with permission from the local government and with temperature checks for servers before their shifts.
Pritzker and Ezike urged the public to adhere closely to the state’s guidelines to avoid a resurgence as more Illinoisans resume activities that were part of daily life before the virus hit.
“The fact that we’ve seen these numbers trend in a good direction even after we opened things up in phase two demonstrates the importance of everyday actions,” the governor said, noting that the loosening of some restrictions in his statewide stay-at-home order on May 1 was accompanied by a new requirement for wearing face coverings in public.
The loosening of coronavirus restrictions in Chicago, however, will come at a slower pace. Lightfoot last week said the city’s reopening “will be like slowly turning a dimmer switch and not flipping a light switch” and said it would come in “early June.”
In most ways the Lightfoot’s guidelines are quite similar to Pritzker’s plan.
One place where they differ is in regard to retailers. Pritzker says retailers can operate at 50% of their normal capacity or five customers per 1,000 square feet. Lightfoot distinguishes between essential retailers, which can go up to 50%, and those deemed nonessential, which must cap the number of people in the store at 25% of normal.
In Chicago parks, noncontact sports will be allowed in small groups in phase three, which means tennis courts should get unlocked again, but don’t expect those basketball rims to get reinstalled. Playgrounds will stay closed.
Lightfoot also promised enforcement of the new rules.
“In order to support the more than 130,000 estimated Chicagoans who will head back to their places of work in phase three, a robust enforcement strategy, which will be led by the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection and (Health Department), will be put in place to keep employers, employees and customers safe,” the mayor’s news release reads in part.
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