The state is set to roll back reopening restrictions across a wide swath of suburban Chicago later this week as Illinois continues to see a major resurgence of the coronavirus.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to announce Tuesday afternoon that starting later this week, indoor service will be prohibited once again at restaurants and bars in DuPage, Kane, Will and Kankakee counties, an area that’s home to more than 1 in 6 Illinois residents.
The two regions comprising those counties are poised to move back a phase in Pritzker’s reopening plan after the seven-day average of their positivity rates on coronavirus tests rose above a threshold of 8% for three straight days.
Altogether, four of the 11 regions in Pritzker’s plan now would be under the stricter guidelines, which also include lowering a cap on gatherings from 50 people to 25, once the latest rollback takes effect later this week. The tighter rules take effect Thursday in the 20 southernmost counties in Illinois and have been in effect since Oct. 3 in the nine counties in the state’s northwest corner.
And while they’ve yet to meet the threshold that would trigger a reopening rollback, the seven other regions, including Chicago, suburban Cook County, and Lake and McHenry counties, have seen their positivity rates rise in the past two weeks.