CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday announced targeted restrictions for retail shops and a shutdown of casinos as part of the state's latest effort to slow the surging coronavirus.
Just ahead of the busiest shopping season of the year, retailers will be under a 25% capacity limit, down from the current 50%. A 50% capacity limit will remain for grocery stores, but big-box chains such as Walmart and Target that include groceries will be subject to the lower limit.
In addition to casinos, video gambling terminals statewide will be shut down under the plan.
The new measures take effect at midnight Friday.
The measures stop short of a full-blown return to a stay-at-home order like the one Pritzker issued in March, something he suggested in recent days could be in the offing.
Outdoor dining, elective surgeries, and salon and spa services that allow for a mask to be worn all will be allowed to continue.
Decisions on whether to continue in-person instruction at schools will be left up to local districts.
State health officials reported 12,601 new confirmed and probable cases of the coronavirus, the 12th straight day with more than 10,000 cases. Over the past week, Illinois has been averaging 12,381 cases per day. In all, there have been 597,849 cases statewide since the pandemic began.
There also were 97 additional fatalities reported Tuesday, bringing the statewide death toll to 10,875. The state has been averaging 84 deaths per day over the past week, the highest total since June 2. At the height of the first in early to mid-May, the state averaged more than 100 deaths per day.
The percentage of coronavirus cases as a share of total tests hit as seven-day rolling average of 12.5% on Tuesday. After surging from 8.1% at the beginning of the month and 3.4% at the beginning of October, the growth in the case positivity rate appears to have leveled off over the past week.
Illinois residents have lived under some level of restrictions aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19 since mid-March. Schools and restaurants and bars were some of the first to come under restrictions, when Pritzker suspended in-person learning across the state, and ordered restaurants and bars closed for indoor service.
Those moves came before Pritzker issued a statewide stay-at-home order that took effect March 21. It was the farthest-reaching measure he's taken during the pandemic so far, a sweeping package of restrictions that imposed changes on essentially every sector and activity.
Residents lived under those restrictions until May, when Pritzker ordered a statewide mask mandate for most public settings, as part of a phased-in reopening plan that relaxed rules for businesses and allowed for larger gathering sizes as the state saw declining COVID-19 hospitalizations, deaths and daily case tallies.
In late June, the state entered phase four of Pritzker's plan, when restaurants and bars were allowed to reopen for indoor service with capacity limits and gatherings of up to 50 people were allowed. The majority of the state spent the summer under those rules, though the state's positivity rate for cases as a share of tests conducted ticked up gradually later in the summer.
Pritzker's administration changed its plan over the summer to segment the state into 11 regions and clamp down on them individually if they hit bench marks indicating the new coronavirus was again surging there. The Metro East region near St. Louis was the first to reach that bench mark and see rules tightened in late August, but by early November, the entire state was under tightened rules that reduced gathering size limits to 25 and again shuttered indoor dining and bar service.
Despite a rapidly rising coronavirus resurgence in the early fall and the majority of the state coming under tightened rules, Pritzker for weeks said he would stay with the regional reopening plan rather than a new statewide order, but over the past two weeks and as the state neared and surpassed the highest number of hospitalizations during the spring peak, he indicated a change in course could be coming.
Since the spring, Pritzker has faced at-times fierce pushback on his restrictions, from businesses, religious groups and lawmakers. The rebellion has gained momentum as a larger swath of the state has come under tougher restrictions. Pritzker sought to minimize that pushback Tuesday during an online news conference about coronavirus response held with governors of neighboring states.
"We'll all suffer the slings and arrows of the very loud minority of people who think this is a hoax, or aren't following mitigations for one reason or another, and we'll keep trying to educate them," Pritzker said.
The governor also has faced criticism when his actions have appeared to contradict the public health messages he's conveyed during his coronavirus briefings, such as when he participated in a large demonstration for racial justice following the death of George Floyd or when he took to the streets to celebrate Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election. In both cases, Pritzker wore a mask while in public.
On Monday, he appeared to hesitate when asked whether he'd be staying in Illinois to celebrate Thanksgiving after he and Illinois Department of Public Health officials have been urging Illinois residents for weeks to rethink their Thanksgiving plans and gather virtually rather than around the same table.
At the Zoom news conference Tuesday, in response to a question about where the governors planned to spend Thanksgiving, Pritzker said he would be in Illinois
