October 31, 2024
Coronavirus
Coronavirus

Breaking: Pritzker announces stricter regulations amid continued Region 1 COVID-19 resurgence

New restrictions go into place on Sunday

By Kelsey Rettke
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Lincoln Inn at Faranda's waitress Tiffane Barreto brings out lunch for Jeanette Biava, (left) of DeKalb, Beverley Lane, from Sycamore, and Carolynn Werline, (right) also of Sycamore, who were dining outside under a heated tent Friday at the restaurant in DeKalb. The Illinois Department of Public Health announced earlier this week that Region 1, which includes DeKalb and Sycamore, must once again close indoor dining at restaurants and limit gatherings to 25 people or less starting Saturday. (Mark Busch)

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced further mitigations will be enforced on the geographical health region known as Region 1, which includes DeKalb County, Rockford and the Sauk Valley area due to continued rises in COVID-19 cases.

"Over the last few weeks, Region 1 has continued to record a re-surging positivity rate now up to 11.9% as of this morning," Pritzker said during Thursday's daily COVID-19 news conference. "We've said all along that if things don't turn around in a region after two weeks of resurgence mitigations, we may need to add more stringent measures to help ensure the progress we need to see to get things more open. That is now the case in Region 1 which has seen its positivity rate rise nearly 2% [points] since Oct. 15."

Additional measures will begin Sunday, Pritzker said, and will limit gatherings to groups of 10 or fewer instead of 25. Tables at bars and restaurants offering outdoor dining will also be limited to six instead of 10.

He said mitigations imposed Oct. 3 which prohibit indoor dining will remain in effect until positivity rates drop.

This is a developing story which will be updated as more information becomes available.

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