ILLINOIS (WAND) - Illinois State Police will be helping to regulate regions that are under tighter COVID-19 mitigations, Gov. JB Pritzker announced.
The governor said ISP officers will be working in Regions 1,5,7 and 8 of the Restore Illinois plan, all of which have seen rising COVID-19 statistics that led to tougher mitigation measures, including restrictions to bars and restaurants. The troopers will not be arresting people, but the governor said citations could be handed out to individuals under a pandemic emergency regulation.
Warnings will likely come before citations are issued, Pritzker said. He added troopers will be checking to be sure places that have liquor and gaming licenses are following protocol and will threaten to remove their ability to provide those services if they are not.
"We're going to ask the businesses, as the regulation outlines, to do what they're supposed to do," he said Friday. "And we'll hold them responsible for their actions."
This additional enforcement of COVID-19 regulations is a change for Pritzker, who in the past downplayed enforcement while looking for compliance.
“It is very serious right now, folks, and if we need to close down restaurants or bars or take away their liquor licenses, take away their gaming licenses, we will do that because we are now headed into a peak that is beyond, potentially, where we were in March and April,” Pritzker said Thursday when visiting the St. Clair County Health Department in Belleville.
Region 5 saw increased mitigations, which include only allowing outdoor bar and restaurant service that has to end at 11 p.m. and the limiting of gatherings to 25 or less people, begin Thursday. Regions 7 and 8, which contain counties in the suburban Chicago area, will have mitigations start Sunday.
Region 1 in northwestern Illinois has been under mitigations since Oct. 3, but COVID-19 continued to spread, with the positivity rate reaching 12%. Even stronger restrictions, including a limit of 10 people in gatherings and a maximum of six people allowed at outdoor restaurant tables, begin there on Sunday.
Illinois has a total of over 364,000 COVID-19 cases. It also has over 9,400 total deaths.
On Friday, Illinois broke its single-day record for number of tests conducted in a single day and reported 3,874 new cases. It also reported 31 new deaths.
