Chicago health officials have added Wisconsin to the city’s emergency travel order, requiring anyone entering or returning to the city from the state to quarantine for 14 days.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said at a press conference on Monday that the city of Chicago is doing well because “we were extremely prudent when we started to reopen up.”
“We didn’t go as large with capacity, for example, as other areas across the country,” Lightfoot said. “So what we’re seeing is cities and towns, particularly across the south through the southwest and on to California are really having significant struggles now because many of those communities took a very different approach to the one that Chicago took. We’re also seeing an increase in states around us. Wisconsin, for example, is going to go on our quarantine list later this week.”
The city’s travel order is evaluated every Tuesday to determine if states should be added or removed from the list of locations travelers must quarantine from. Wisconsin will join 18 other states on the quarantine list including Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.
Wisconsin now has 49,417 coronavirus cases and 893 deaths, according to recent numbers. Health officials first brought up the possibility of Wisconsin being added to the list last week.
“I want you to know that Wisconsin is being very close to being on this list, they could be added as soon as next week,” said Chicago Department of Public Health Director Dr. Allison Arwady said at the time. “When I talk to folks in Wisconsin, whether it’s the state epidemiologist, whether that’s people on just an anecdotal level, we know people are not wearing masks there at the level they are here in Chicago.”
