The mayor has stated that Chicago’s stay-at-home order will likely be extended, again.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced in a news conference on Monday, April 13, that people should expect the current stay-at-home order to be extended past April 30. The order was first made by Governor Pritzker for the entire state of Illinois on March 21, and was expected to run through April 7. However, in light of the growing spread of COVID-19, the order was then extended until April 30.
Now, it appears that the stay-at-home order may be extend yet again into May, with the mayor stating yesterday in a news conference:
“I think that’s going to be difficult for us to say, April 30, everything comes up, I don’t expect that to happen. I think it will extend beyond that.”
Last week Governor Pritzker expressed to the public that he believed the stay-at-home order wouldn’t likely be lifted before April 30, and that summer festivals should likely be canceled. He stated:
“People need to understand that it is unlikely that we will be able to lift this stay-at-home before April 30. And, indeed, as we approach April 30, we will be thinking about what are the restrictions or rules that we need to set going forward after April 30, because it isn’t going to be…that all of a sudden you’re going to drop the stay-at-home [order] and every other restriction.”
On Sunday, Mayor Lightfoot made an appearance on Face the Nation, and when asked by the CBS reporter about the likelihood of opening the city again by next month, Lightfoot responded:
“We’ve got to see not just a flattening of the curve, but a bending down. We’re trending in the right direction here in Chicago…but we have to see a lot more progress on the healthcare front before we can even start talking about reopening.”
Currently, however, the order is still set to last until the end of the month.
[Featured image via Wikimedia commons / Daniel X. O’Neil / CC BY 2.0]