On Friday, the Cook County Department of Public Health released an emergency travel guide directing travelers from certain states to remain in quarantine for 14 days.
The guide reflects Chicago’s travel order, which also requires anyone visiting or returning to the city from one of the 17 states to be quarantined for two weeks.
Cook County, which includes several suburbs surrounding Chicago, will follow the same list of states that went into effect in the city on Friday.
• Alabama
• Arkansas
• Arizona
• California
• Florida
• Georgia
• Idaho
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• North Carolina
• Nevada
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Iowa
• Oklahoma
“We have come a long way in Cook County and Illinois and we want to keep it that way,” Cook County Department of Public Health Co-Leader and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Rachel Rubin said in a statement. “It is summer and we know that people want to travel, but we have to remain vigilant to maintain our achievements and avoid having to close places that we have just reopened.”
Chicago first issued an emergency travel order for 15 states just before the July 4 holiday weekend. The order went into effect on July 6.
The states included in the order at the time were: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. It was updated this week to include Oklahoma and Iowa.
Dr. Allison Arwady, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said travelers entering or returning to Chicago from “states experiencing an increase in new COVID-19 cases” should be quarantined “during a period of 14 days from the time of last contact within the site identified state. “
The order will remain in effect until further notice and the list of states is scheduled to be reviewed every Tuesday.
As of Thursday, there were 156,693 cases of coronaviruses in Illinois, 40,805 of them in the Cook County suburbs. Another 55,857 were reported in Chicago.
“Our positivity rates are quite low, but that can change, as we’ve seen in neighboring states,” Dr. Kiran Joshi, co-director and medical director of the Cook County Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “Prevention is the best medicine. We ask everyone to avoid traveling to the most affected areas. If you must travel, quarantine for 14 days to protect others and help us stop the spread of COVID-19. “
The DuPage County Health Department is also encouraging anyone traveling from Illinois to quarantine 14 days, but it failed to issue an emergency order like the one that started in Chicago.
The health department warned that such “recommendations are critical to ensuring that members of our community continue to reduce the risk of spread.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “traveling increases your chances of getting and spreading COVID-19.”
The move comes as US states see waves of coronavirus cases, with many closing bars and restaurants in an effort to smother or prevent a spike.
New cases have emerged in various states across the country, setting new records almost daily, driven primarily by the outbreak expansion in the southern and western United States.
New York and New Jersey are also asking visitors from various states, from the Carolinas to California, to be quarantined for two weeks.
It is unclear if the rest of Illinois will do the same.
“Our two main international airports are in the city of Chicago,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said Tuesday. “We don’t have a lot of international travel in other parts of the state.”
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