ST. CLAIR COUNTY, Ill. — The open sign glows brightly at Cosmic Comics on Main Street Belleville, a status not possible for every neighboring business.
“Most of the restaurants down the street are shut down. A lot of them have suspended all operations until spring,” Cosmic Comic owner Dave Dyer said.
Even though they're open, Dyer says the state's coronavirus mitigation efforts still have an effect on his business. He's closed the coffee shop that brought in about 15% of sales and can no longer allow groups to play games in his store due to capacity and social distancing regulations. Plus, there is a significant loss of foot traffic.
“Come 5 o'clock, it's a ghost town down here,” Dyer said. “It's a complete ghost town, and I hate to see that. There used to be so much bustle in life down here and now it's nothing.”
The Metro East's data is showing progress. Look at the numbers and you'll see the 7-day positivity average reported Tuesday was 12.1%, which was up slightly from the previous day.
The state health department said regions need to maintain a positivity rate below 12% to loosen restrictions. Region 4 — comprised of St. Clair, Madison, Monroe, Bond, Washington, Clinton, and Randolph Counties — has been right around that range where restrictions could be relaxed if these numbers hold steady or fall.
But county leaders don't want people to see promise and forget the people who are hardest hit, those who don't recover.
"Adding nine new deaths today. We are way above that national average of one in 1000 people that have died in the county," St. Clair County Chairman Mark Kern said in the county's briefing Monday. "We need to arrest that number. Nine deaths is just shockingly unacceptable."
At a Monday update, leaders promoted testing and talked about the promise of vaccinations. Dyer agrees vaccines are essential to returning to a semblance of normalcy, and until then he continues to watch local data for the day they can roll back restrictions.
"I have to as a shop owner," he said.