Illinois citizens are now required to wear masks in public.
In a press briefing moments ago, Governor JB Priztker officially extended the Illinois stay-at-home order to May 30. In addition, he announced that the citizens of Illinois would be required to wear face masks in public.
In emphasizing the effectiveness of the state’s stay-at-home order, previously set to expire on April 30, Pritzker stated that further measures were necessary to curb Illinois’ COVID cases.
“This is the part when we have to dig in”, Pritzker said in today’s press briefing. “And we have to understand that the sacrifices that we’ve made as a state to avoid a worst-case-scenario are working and we need to keep going a little while longer to finish the job.”
While Pritzker has previously encouraged citizens to wear masks, and schools and communities across Chicago have already invoked these measures, under the governor’s new initiative, face masks are now required statewide.
Lori Lightfoot, however, has opposed these new measures, citing the communities’ lack of resources:
“The challenge is making sure that every member of the public has the same accessibility to some kind of face coverage.”
Under the state mandate, individuals are required to wear some sort of face covering when in a public space that doesn’t permit feasible social distancing of more than six feet — such as a grocery store.
“Let me be clear, wearing a mask is protecting everybody else,” the governor said. “So you’re doing everybody else a favor or you know, you’re doing the right thing for everybody else in your presence by wearing one. By not wearing one when you’re in public, going into a public place or anything like that, you know, it’s something you aren’t doing to protect other people.”
[Featured image via shutterstock]