SPRINGFIELD — After complaints from some suburban and downstate officials seeking more local control in fighting the coronavirus, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday he would divide Illinois into smaller regions under his reopening plan, putting Chicago and suburban Cook County each into their own regions.
The Chicago Democrat cast the retooling as part of a “a more granular approach in this phase of the response to COVID-19.”
It essentially reshuffles the reopening regions the state is divided into to 11, rather than the four large ones under his current reopening plan.
The new plan is based on the 11 regions in the state’s Emergency Medical Service regions that are used by state public health officials. The new plan means Chicago and suburban Cook County will be divided into their own, separate regions. Chicago’s collar counties will also be divided into three separate regions under the governor’s updated plan.
Pritzker said the new, smaller regions will give the state more flexibility to combat coronavirus if locality experiences a local outbreak.
“This plan lays out an array of mitigation strategies that can be applied if a region breeches the resurgence metrics,” Pritzker said at a press conference in Chicago.
Pritzker’s announcement comes after both Democratic and Republican lawmakers called for more local control over the coronavirus plan. The four regions the state is currently divided into are too big, they argue, and ignore the realities on the ground in local communities.
Some legislators from the collar counties said they don’t like being grouped with Chicago in Illinois’ northern region under the governor’s current plan, saying that some suburban and rural parts of the collar counties are not facing nearly the type of viral outbreak that is occurring in Chicago.
On June 26, all regions in Illinois moved into Phase 4 of the governor’s reopening plan, meaning that bars and restaurants could reopen with limited capacity. But some state lawmakers in both parties complained the governor’s reopening plan did not give localities enough control on how to deal with the virus.
Some suburban legislators criticized the governor for grouping Lake, McHenry, Will, Kane and DuPage counties, in the same regions as Chicago and Cook County where the coronavirus outbreak is the highest.
The changes come as Mayor Lori Lightfoot warned the city may need to roll back its reopening unless young people, the group seeing increasing cases of the virus, start following social distancing guidelines in mass.
“I don’t want to be that person if I don’t have to. But I will if you make me,” Lightfoot said. “And right now, we are on the precipice. We are dangerously close to going back to a dangerous state of conditions.”
The new regions under Pritzker’s plan are:
NORTH: Boone, Carroll, DeKalb, Jo Daviess, Lee, Ogle, Stephenson, Whiteside, Winnebago
NORTH-CENTRAL: Bureau, Fulton, Grundy, Henderson, Henry, Kendall, Knox, La Salle, Livingston, Marshall, McDonough, McLean, Mercer, Peoria, Putnam, Rock Island, Stark, Tazewell, Warren, Woodford
WEST-CENTRAL: Adams, Brown, Calhoun, Cass, Christian, Greene, Hancock, Jersey, Logan, Macoupin, Mason, Mason, Menard, Montgomery, Morgan, Pike, Sangamon, Schuyler, Scott
METRO EAST: Bond, Clinton, Madison, Monroe, Randolph, St. Clair, Washington
SOUTHERN: Alexander, Edwards, Franklin, Gallatin, Hamilton, Hardin, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Marion, Massac, Perry, Pope, Pulaski, Saline, Union, Wabash, Wayne, White, Williamson
EAST-CENTRAL: Champaign, Clark, Clay, Coles, Crawford, Cumberland, De Witt, Douglas, Edgar, Effingham, Fayette, Ford, Iroquois, Jasper, Lawrence, Macon, Moultrie, Piatt, Richland, Shelby, Vermillion
SOUTH SUBURBAN: Kankakee, Will
WEST SUBURBAN: DuPage, Kane
NORTH SUBURBAN: Lake, McHenry
SUBURBAN COOK: Suburban Cook
CHICAGO: City of Chicago
