Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday ordered all Chicagoans with confirmed cases of coronavirus — as well as those just exhibiting symptoms of the highly-contagious disease — to stay home to prevent community spread of the pandemic.
The mayor took the unprecedented step after Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady signed a public health order stating that those with confirmed cases or symptoms “may not leave their homes, go to work or meet in groups.”
The only exception to the stay-at-home order is to seek “essential services, including necessary clinical care or evaluation and life sustaining needs” that include “obtaining food and medicine.
Violators will be slapped with citations and fines by Chicago Police and the Department of Public Health, even though it’s not known precisely how they will be identified.
“During this unprecedented crisis, we must move quickly and in the best interest of the public. Restricting the movements of those who have COVID-19 or who are symptomatic is the best way to prevent the virus from spreading further,” Lightfoot was quoted as saying in a press release.
“We are implementing today’s order to ensure a precise and data-driven response to the trends of this illness and, following recommendations by our City’s public health experts, believe that these heightened measures are necessary to contain the virus and protect our residents. We must be all in this together, and people who are sick must stay home to protect themselves and the public.”
The stay-at-home order will remain in place until Arwady makes a written determination that the threat to public health posed has diminished,” City Hall said.
“This move may seem severe to some but in this highly evolving situation it’s absolutely what we need to do at this time as we work to contain this outbreak,” Arwady was quoted as saying.
“We’ve been working daily for well over two months now with our partners at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention on tracking this virus and assessing its course, using data to inform our decisions and following the science. This is the right thing to do in this moment.”
The order defines “COVID-19 Illness” as “demonstrating symptoms of acute respiratory disease, including, but not limited to, new onset of fever, cough, shortness of breath, congestion in the nasal sinuses or lungs, sore throat, body aches, or unusual fatigue.
It states that patients must be “free of fever (100.4° F (38.0° C) or greater using an oral thermometer), and any of the other symptoms described herein, for at least 72 hours, without the use of fever-reducing or other symptom-altering medicines that include cough suppressants.
Lightfoot has already canceled the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Wednesday’s City Council meeting in response to a pandemic that has closed schools, bars and dine-in restaurants and has turned downtown Chicago into a ghost town with most employees working from home.
She has closed 60 public libraries, ordered a temporary moratorium on ticketing, towing, booting and debt collection to ease the financial burden on Chicagoans and promised more specific financial relief for restaurant workers and other hourly workers most impacted by the pandemic.
The police academy has also been closed, temporarily shutting down training needed to comply with rigorous requirements of a federal consent decree and churn out police recruits. For the time being at least, recruits have been transferred to police districts.
The mayor is scheduled to deliver a televised address at 5 p.m. Thursday to outline additional measures.
Already, an employee of the city’s Department of Procurement Services and three first responders—a Chicago Fire Department paramedic, an assistant deputy chief paramedic and an unspecified Chicago Police Department employee—have tested positive for the virus.
The Police and Fire cases are particularly troubling because of the threat of a more rampant spread that could sideline a large group of first-responders just when they’re needed most.
The police employee who tested positive was not identified, nor was his or her rank or position.
Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi would only say that the impacted employee is at home under quarantine, that CPD “began a thorough cleaning and disinfection of the facility where the employee was stationed” and that officials are working to identify anyone who may have interacted with the impacted employee.
“The employee’s work area and any vehicles and equipment used by the individual are also being cleaned,” Guglielmi was quoted as saying in a statement.
