Chicago will move its full reopening date up three weeks to coincide with Illinois’ planned target of June 11, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Thursday, paving the way for the city to be the closest it’s been to life before COVID-19 since the pandemic started more than a year ago.
“I think we’re ready to move to phase five with the state next Friday, June 11th. What do you think?” Lightfoot asked public health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady during a surprise appearance on the latter’s online question-and-answer session.
“I agree,” Arwady responded. “I agree.”
The move from the city came after weeks of the mayor’s administration keeping mum on whether Chicago will push up its previous target date of July 4 for a full opening. Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced early last month that June 11 would be when the rest of the state would fully reopen and on Tuesday said Illinois was on track to meet that mark.
With Thursday’s announcement, Chicago is also scheduled to be the largest U.S. city to fully reopen by the June 11 date. New York City’s mayor has projected July 1 for a full reopening, while that goal is June 15 for Los Angeles as well as the rest of California. Nationwide, President Joe Biden has said July 4 is his target for a seemingly less sweeping “path to get closer to normal.”
Under Pritzker’s phase five plan for the state, a full reopening means Chicagoans and visitors alike will have few coronavirus-related restrictions to worry about on June 11. It follows 15 months of rules that at certain times included shutdowns of indoor dining, all-remote learning at public schools, a stay-at-home order and other constraints that marked a year of widespread sacrifice for public health.
Businesses such as restaurants and bars will face no capacity limits, though they can continue imposing their own restrictions such as masking and carding for vaccination status beyond the June 11 reopening, officials said. Masks will also still be required for vaccinated people on public transit, and in airports, schools and hospitals — or in most public settings for those who are unvaccinated. Large gatherings of all sizes can return, meaning there will be no COVID-19-related caps on parties, festivals, weddings, places of worship, conferences and sports events.
Under the current “bridge” phase, all of those settings have some form of a capacity limit, albeit loosened compared with earlier surges last fall and last spring and with carveouts for those who are vaccinated. Some large events, such as the Lollapalooza music festival, still will exclude those without proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test, Arwady said.
“While Phase Five will bring a broad return to pre-pandemic life, including a lifting of all COVID regulations at businesses, COVID-19 will remain a part of our life. Federal mask mandates, for example, still require masks on public transit, in healthcare settings and in schools,” Lightfoot spokesman Ryan Johnson said in a statement.
The move also means 100% capacity at the city’s ballparks.
And with the Cubs set to host their National League Central rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, for a three-game set at Wrigley Field starting June 11, Cubs spokesman Julian Green said the North Siders were looking forward to big weekend crowds.
“The ability to welcome 100% of our fans against one of our biggest rivals as we sit atop the NL Central is huge for the team, and represents a huge economic impact to the city as we continue to put people back to work,” Green said. He thanked Lightfoot for working with the team to navigate the pandemic.
White Sox spokeswoman Sheena Quinn said the team was “still reviewing the latest guidance and will have more information in the coming days.”
Lightfoot and Arwady cited coronavirus metrics in the city that are the lowest since the pandemic began. The city is seeing a seven-day rolling average of 135 new cases per day and has a 2% test positivity rate, and hospitalizations and occupied intensive care unit beds continue to decline.
But the city still has not reached a desired coverage of vaccinations, a metric that Lightfoot said remains a concern. About 41% of the city’s residents are fully vaccinated, state records show. Arwady said her goal was 70% of the city’s adult population getting a first dose by July 4, a target she acknowledged was ambitious with the current rate at 63%.
“Before people uncork the Champagne and have beers all around, a note of caution: COVID’s still here, still with us, and why we are able to do what we’re doing, no doubt, is as a result of the vaccinations,” Lightfoot said.
For more than a month now, city officials have been wrestling with a new challenge of vaccine demand waning and have tried to target more hesitant residents to get the shot. City data shows that an April 6 peak of more than 27,115 daily first doses administered has since plummeted to Wednesday’s total of 2,216 first doses. The mayor said Thursday there will be a “whole new array of incentives” to pull up the city’s vaccination rates, though she didn’t elaborate.
Across Chicago and the rest of the state, some incentives have included free haircuts, tickets to Six Flags and concerts. Pritzker hinted at greater rewards to come on Wednesday when he said state officials are exploring the idea of a vaccination lottery similar to what other states are rolling out.
Arwady added there is still possibility of a fall or winter “surge” that would mostly hit people who remain unvaccinated. But she said there was hope “this reopening can be forever.”
Illinois’ vaccination effort continues to lag following Memorial Day weekend, with 36,372 shots recorded on Wednesday. That brings the average of doses administered daily over the past week to 37,328, its lowest level since late January.
State health officials reported Thursday that two-thirds of Illinois adults have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while nearly 51% are fully vaccinated, having received both of the required doses from Pfizer or Moderna or Johnson & Johnson’s single shot.
The state reported 674 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19, bringing the seven-day average of new daily cases to 637, the lowest level since an average of 622 daily cases was recorded during the week ending June 24.
As the state moves toward reopening next week, the case positivity rate — the percentage of new cases as a share of total tests — remains at a seven-day average of 1.5% as of Wednesday, the lowest level since the state Department of Public Health began reporting the data last year.
There were 997 people hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Wednesday night, the first time fewer than 1,000 people have been in the hospital with the virus since March 31, 2020, according to state data.
Officials also reported 24 additional fatalities Thursday, bringing the overall death toll to 22,865 since the pandemic began. In all, there have been 1,383,739 COVID-19 cases recorded statewide.
