City leaders have no ‘current plans to close down Chicago again’ but ‘we need people to step up’: public health commissioner

Chicago’s top health official said Sunday the city has has “no goal or current plans to close down Chicago again.”

But Dr. Allison Arwady said “we need people once again to step up” to get vaccine and, for now, use masks indoors, even those who are vaccinated.

“In Chicago, we can be open and be careful at the same time,” Arwady said.

She sought to put the rising case numbers in context, noting that they’re not approaching the rates seen in a series of previous surges, and to dispel myths about the vaccine, such as that thousands of people have died from the shots, that they cause infertility or that they implant microchips.

“That is not true,” she said repeatedly. She encouraged people to ask questions of experts, do research and “don’t simply take the word of someone who is posting on Facebook because there is a lot of misinformation.”

Most of Chicago’s and Illinois’ COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in June as cases fell and vaccination rates rose. But that began to change in recent days with the current surge of the delta variant, which the CDC said can be more easily spread by people who are vaccinated, even if it doesn’t tend to make them seriously ill.

With the entire Chicago region now under the CDC’s indoor-mask-for-all guidance as of Friday for “substantial” coronavirus spread — and most of the state listed as “substantial or “high” transmission — Gov. J.B. Pritzker mandated masks in all state buildings, regardless of vaccination status. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus said it would require masks in all indoor spaces. Producers of Lollapalooza, which is now in its final day in Chicago’s Grant Park and which has been packing in hundreds of thousands of mostly unmasked people Thursday, did the same.

On Friday, the city issued guidance strongly encouraging businesses, employers and event organizers to “require universal masking in all public indoor settings.” Outdoors, the new guidance says, masks were still optional and “no changes are being made to the recommendations for social distancing.”

Also Friday, Chicago passed the 200 mark of average new daily cases, which the mayor had cited as a possible threshold for new restrictions,

Lightfoot has faced a complicated balancing act on the pandemic, which arrived less than a year into her term. She has pleaded with residents to get vaccinated and warned about possible restrictions if the city sees spikes. But she also has made a point of emphasizing her desire to keep the city as open as possible. At times, it has led to some mixed messaging.

As cases rose last October, for instance, she regularly warned about tighter restrictions being forthcoming — then criticized Pritzker for again shutting down indoor dining. Lightfoot also faced criticism from people who thought Lollapalooza shouldn’t be allowed to happen this year as cases swell, or that more restrictions needed to be imposed on the festival. Attendees have to show they’ve been vaccinated or that they’ve received a negative coronavirus test within 72 hours before entering. That standard was loosened from a previous 24-hour window.

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