CHICAGO — Illinois residents will be required to wear masks indoors, and vaccines will be required for public school and health care staff.
The mask mandate applies to people over the age of 2, regardless of vaccination status. It takes effect Monday, Aug. 30.
"Masks work. Period," Gov. J.B. Pritzker said during a press conference in Chicago Thursday.
Vaccines will be required for teachers and staff in staff in public schools, from pre-kindergarten through grade 12. The vaccine mandate also applies to teachers, staff and students in higher education.
Additionally, all private and public health care workers are required to get the shot.
School and health care staff who have not received at least one vaccine dose by Sept. 5 will be required to undergo weekly COVID-19 testing.
“The quick spread of this disease in Illinois and across the country is holding us all back from the post-pandemic life we so desperately want to embrace, and it’s harming the most vulnerable among us,” Pritzker said.
The delta variant is spreading across the state. All 102 counties are classified as a “high transmission risk” area by the Illinois Department of Public Health.
As of Aug. 25, there are over 4,500 new cases in the state, more than a previous spike in April.
Health officials said they are concerned about hospital capacity.
"In Region 5, southern Illinois, the least vaccinated region of the state, there was only one available ICU bed on Tuesday," said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. "That's one ICU bed in the entire region for the 20 counties it serves for anyone, whether it's appendicitis, a car crash, any kind of injury that would need a bed."
Vaccinations are increasing in the state. On Aug. 20, the Illinois Department of Public Health announced more than 77% of Illinois adults have received at least one vaccine dose and more than 60% are fully vaccinated in its weekly report.
COVID-19 outbreak in Carlyle schools
In the Carlyle School District in Clinton County, schools are already seeing outbreaks of the virus just days after opening their doors.
A Carlyle school board member told 5 On Your Side there are almost 30 positive COVID cases and over 150 people quarantined between the three school buildings in that district.
The district is made up of an elementary, a junior high and a high school.
The school board started the year not requiring students or staff to wear masks, going against the governor’s order that masks be worn in all state schools.
The state responded by putting Carlyle on probation, threatening to suspend the school from sports and pull funding.
During a board meeting on Monday, the district reversed their decision, requiring universal masking starting Tuesday in all schools.
It can’t be said for sure that the decision was made as a result of the spike in cases, or the state’s threat to pull funding as a result of their decision to ignore the governor’s mask policy.
A recent graduate, Lucas Rainey, said he thinks masks should be the school’s choice. Rainey has younger siblings still in school there.
He said they are fine, and he doubts a lack of masks have anything to do with the spike in cases.
“I think it should have been the school's decision to do what they want,” Rainey said. “Everyone in Clinton County has got their way of thinking. No one wants to wear a mask, no one wants to do anything.”
Our team spoke with the Clinton County health department director who called this an “outbreak.” The director said the situation is worse than what they are seeing in other schools in the county.