The Illinois Department of Health issued a new guideline Wednesday urging residents to stay home and only take leave for “essential activities.”
The pre-Thanksgiving holiday guide recommends that, for the next three weeks, residents “stay at home as much as possible, leaving only for necessary and essential activities, such as work must be done outside the home, COVID-19 testing, visiting the pharmacy and Grocery shopping. “
The guidance also urges employers to have employees work from home as much as possible during that period.
“We ask employers to arrange for this to happen,” the department said. “Our goal is to reduce transmission as we go on holiday so businesses and schools can stay open.”
In addition, health officials suggest limiting travel and gatherings.
“In our current situation, with the increasing incidence of the virus, even participating in small gatherings mixed in homes, or traveling to places that experience high rates of positivity, is not advisable and potentially dangerous,” the publication states. , Travel only if necessary. “
Illinois health officials again reported more than 12,000 new confirmed and potential coronavirus cases Wednesday, marking the state’s deadliest day of the epidemic since May, setting a record for the most single-day report of new cases for the second day in a row.
The new recommendations follow Pritzker’s warning that the health department is looking at the possibility of additional sanctions at the region level or possibly even statewide.
Already, all of Illinois’ healthcare territories were under increasing decline from the state, shutting down indoor dining and bar services and limiting the size of aggregations.
On Wednesday, three of those territories entered Tier 2 of the state’s mitigation plan, limiting the size of the party at the table for outdoor dining and further restricting the size gathered. Only one other sector was already under such restrictions.
Government’s J.B. Pritzker said coronavirus was three times more likely to be hospitalized than the first wave of epidemics in some Illinois regions, and a group of doctors warned that the state could “exceed its ICU bed capacity by Thanksgiving.”
The state on Wednesday saw an increase in the number of hospital admissions, currently having 5,042 residents in hospitals due to diseases like coronavirus. Of those patients, 951 are currently in intensive care units, and 404 are on ventilators.
The first peak in COVID-19 cases earlier this year was the highest figure met by the state in their respective categories, three figures.
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