Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Pritzker lifts some vax mandates and limits some testing mandates

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Illinois

* The new EO is here. Press release…

As part of his continuing plan to carefully unwind the state’s COVID-19 executive orders, Governor Pritzker today updating vaccine and testing requirements in some industries. The updated executive order amends testing requirements for some unvaccinated health care employees and removes mandates for some other industries. Among the provisions that have been lifted in past months, Governor Pritzker has reduced requirements for school exclusion, removed provisions relating to setting up alternative care facilities, returned to non-emergency hospital oversight by removing several provisions and restarted normal jail-to-prison transfers. Other changes included lifting provisions in an effort to ensure governments are resuming normal operations.

The Governor continues to maintain all provisions necessary for the health and safety of the people of Illinois, as well as all provisions in disaster proclamations that enable the state to recoup the maximum available from the federal government.

“Vaccination continues to be the number one tool we have to fight COVID-19, and I’m proud that so many Illinoisans have taken advantage of this life-saving tool,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “I continue to urge all Illinoisans to make sure they’re up to date on their COVID-19 vaccine to ensure the most at-risk populations and those unable to be vaccinated are protected from the serious side effects of this disease. As we continue to move toward living with this virus, my administration will relax some requirements while continuing to protect the most vulnerable and ensuring we can get every federal dollar our residents are eligible to receive.”

Currently, Illinois requires at least weekly testing of health care staff who are unvaccinated. Under the updated requirements, long-term care facilities with the most vulnerable residents, including skilled nursing homes, will now test staff who are not up to date with their COVID-19 vaccine weekly if located in an area of moderate community level transmission and twice weekly in areas of substantial or high community level transmission, as recommended by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Unvaccinated staff at hospitals and other healthcare facilities that are certified by CMS will now be required to test weekly only if located in areas of high community level transmission.

Vaccine mandates for higher education employees and students and emergency medical service providers will not be reissued. Vaccination mandates will remain in place in K-12 schools, daycares, state-run 24/7 congregate care facilities, and any health care facilities not covered under the federal CMS vaccine mandate (including independent doctors’ offices, dental offices, urgent care facilities, and outpatient facilities).

“We continue to remind everyone in Illinois that the most important step they can take to protect themselves, their loved ones and friends and colleagues is to remain up-to-date on vaccinations and booster shots,” said Acting IDPH Director Amaal Tokars. “This is especially important for those who are vulnerable to serious outcomes. We urge everyone to take advantage of the current availability of vaccines for the sake of their children, as well as getting up-to-date as a parent, guardian or grandparent.”

“The Illinois hospital community appreciates the Governor’s actions today limiting the COVID-19 testing mandate for healthcare workers to high transmission counties,” said A.J. Wilhelmi, President and CEO of the Illinois Health and Hospital Association. “This Order will help hospitals maximize the use of resources for patient care, while simultaneously continuing to operate with reasonable and effective infection controls to remain safe places for patients, visitors and healthcare workers.”

“We are grateful to the Governor for his leadership throughout the pandemic. As we move into this next phase, we are building on the success of our campus leaders, staff, faculty, and students over the past two years in keeping our campuses safe, while keeping students on their path to credentials and degrees, especially our students of color and low-income students who were most impacted,” said Ginger Ostro, Executive Director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

“The COVID-19 vaccines protect us from developing severe illness,” said State Superintendent of Education Dr. Carmen I. Ayala. “The requirement for school personnel to get vaccinated or test weekly ensures that students, families, and educators across Illinois can go to school with confidence in their health and safety.”

“We support Governor Pritzker’s Executive Order because it will ensure that children, teachers, staff and our communities stay safe and healthy,” said Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery. “His leadership ensured that we ended the last school year with a successful vaccination model, which sets us up for the upcoming school year so we can keep our school buildings open and everyone in them healthy.”

“We know the best place for students, and those who teach and care for them, is in the classroom and in school buildings. We are looking forward to the start of this school year,” said Illinois Education Association President Kathi Griffin.

School and daycare-aged children have much lower rates of vaccination than the general public and have less ability to consistently and safely mask. In addition, outbreaks at schools threaten the ability to continue with in-person learning and the developmental benefits it provides.

To find a COVID-19 vaccination site near you, including for children ages six months to four years, visit https://www.vaccines.gov/.

Discuss.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 12:48 pm

Comments

Perfect timing with cases on the rise and our ability to track transmission basically nonexistent. Can’t risk the election though

Comment by SWIL_Voter Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 12:52 pm
===Can’t risk the election ===

Yeah. That’s it. Right.

===with cases on the rise===

Not really https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19.html

===our ability to track transmission basically nonexistent===

With home tests, we can no longer do this.

As I wrote yesterday, hospitalizations are at a very manageable level. That’s what it is supposed to be about https://capitolfax.com/2022/07/12/please-stop-doing-this/

And the IHA is on board.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 12:58 pm
= …restarted normal jail-to-prison transfers… =

“Normal” is a deliberate word choice with so much to unpack. It’s not the word the a lot of counties would use to describe the process in-place.

Comment by Dirty Red Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 1:01 pm
I think Pritzker is just trying to mess with Devores law practice /s

Comment by DuPage Saint Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 1:02 pm
People scream for mandates to be lifted and then when they get what they want they scream that it’s politically motivated.

Comment by Big Dipper Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 1:07 pm
=== Can’t risk the election ===

I’m pretty cynical, but it sure seems like this decision has a lot more to do with funding than it does with the November election.

Plus, as Rich notes, managing hospitalizations was the intent of the EO in the first place. Again, I’m usually quite the cynic, and there remain issues with those stricken by long COVID and still at higher risk due to immunocompromization. But those remaining issues are much harder to fight at the State level.

Comment by thunderspirit Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 1:13 pm
Certainly hospitalizations and deaths are at some kind of “acceptable” level. But the long shadow of long COVID is not a trivial item. The “let ‘em rip” approach ignores this very significant aftermath of disability.

Comment by Groundhog Day Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 1:43 pm
Illinois seems to be doing pretty good with hospitalizations, which from my understanding was the main point of a lot of these mitigation efforts. I work in higher education and I think it makes sense to wind down the mandates there. For the most part, in IL, many schools required vaccinations prior to the mandate being put into place, and it is a highly vaccinated space, even before the mandates were put into place. I expect many institutions will continue to maintain their vaccine requirements for staff/faculty and students, but smaller schools will be happy to spin off the headache of trying to manage weekly testing for those who qualify for exemptions.

Comment by skutt Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 1:50 pm
=== managing hospitalizations was the intent of the EO in the first place. ===

That’s kinda true. The underlying reason to manage hospitalizations was to prevent deaths.

The reality implicit to the statement and the underlying policy is that most of the folks who are contracting severe cases of COVID right now that lead to death, or we think long term consequences from organ damage are largely doing so by choice. They have been provided with overwhelming science, and yet they still are not vaccinating, masking or social distancing even when things were at their worst.

The young, the old and the immuno-compromised are kind of tossed under the bus. We can try to ensure vaccines in schools and in nursing homes, but we know with high community transmission that outbreaks will happen.

If your immune-compromised, COVID is never going to stop being a problem and we really ought to require employers to offer accomodations to work remotely by statute for those folks.

Comment by Thomas Paine Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 1:59 pm
===The underlying reason to manage hospitalizations===

Was to prevent the health care system from collapsing. Period.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 2:01 pm
“Was to prevent the health care system from collapsing. Period.”

How do you do that, and how do you make policy to that end of you don’t know what community spread is?

“An estimate from the Institute for Health Metrics, a research center at the University of Washington, suggests that actual infection numbers in the first week of July have been about seven times higher than reported cases — which have averaged about 107,000 each day over the past two weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Before the CDC lifted the requirement for international travelers to test before coming into the country last month, Mina said, it was an “amazing opportunity” to monitor the state of Covid-19 across the US among a group of mostly asymptomatic people. About 5% of travelers were testing positive throughout the month of May, which he says probably translates to at least 1 million new infections every day in the broader US population — 10 times higher than the official count.“
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/07/11/health/ba-5-hidden-covid-case-increase/index.html

Comment by SWIL_Voter Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 2:07 pm
===how do you make policy to that end of you don’t know what community spread is?===

What do you want to do? Eliminate home tests? Keep all mitigations in place forever, no matter what hospitalizations look like?

Hospitalizations are a fraction of what they were during the dark times. The IHA is on board. What freaking more do you want?

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 2:09 pm
SWIL_Voter

You’re continuing to focus on the wrong metric.

Comment by Demoralized Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 2:10 pm
Also, if the information you posted is true and infections really are multiple times higher than official reports (which I don’t doubt) and yet hospitalizations continue to remain relatively low, then I think we’re in pretty good shape.

It’s time to move on.

Comment by Demoralized Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 2:14 pm
What many public health folks want to do is have very precise messaging. In summary: things are better but the virus can still be dangerous, so get vaccinated and stay up-to-date, and we strongly recommend wearing masks indoors and appropriate self-testing in areas of high spread.

The CDC’s messaging this week, including Dr. Jha’s, said this. The Governor’s messaging said some of it, but accentuated the positive and skipped some of the cautions.

Comment by Keyrock Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 2:45 pm
There was hearing on k-12 teacher vaccination mandates this week, right?

Comment by Dupage Mom Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 2:48 pm
If Gov Priztker really means what he says why isn’t he mandating multiple boosters?

Comment by Dupage Mom Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 2:49 pm
==suggests that actual infection numbers in the first week of July have been about seven times higher than reported cases==

But if those excess infections don’t require hospitalizations…I mean, I don’t want to be cavalier about them, but maybe the don’t require the same high degree of intervention as we saw in 2020 and 2021.

Comment by Arsenal Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 3:17 pm
Others can do whatever they want, but I plan to get my second booster very soon. I don’t want to get Covid again and this BA.5 variant has shown a propensity to evade immunity from vaccines and previous infections. The good news is hospitalizations have remained relatively low. Hopefully it stays that way. People are ready to move on, just not sure that the virus is.

Comment by MoralMinority Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 3:33 pm
Sadly we are still experiencing Covid deaths. Obit doesn’t mention vaccination status.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries/2022/7/12/23205684/abbey-pub-tom-looney-irish-american-heritage-center-chicago-bars

Comment by Big Dipper Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 3:48 pm
For an example of very clear public health messaging, see this short essay by an epidemiologist:
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/ba5-is-here-time-to-ride-the-wave?utm_source=email
Also, note the difference between the two national maps, one showing the current CDC guidelines (focused on hospitalization) and the other showing the spread of the virus.

Comment by Keyrock Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 5:03 pm
How can the Governor say he is protecting the most vulnerable? I work for the state and have a compromised immune system and they wont let me continue to work from home, supposedly on his order.Also they are requiring all employees at one agency to be in office on Tuesdays. 100% staff on Tuesdays? How is that protecting anyone.

Comment by Peanut Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 5:41 pm
==I work for the state and have a compromised immune system and they wont let me continue to work from home, supposedly on his order.Also they are requiring all employees at one agency to be in office on Tuesdays. 100% staff on Tuesdays?==

Secretary of State has had all employees back every day, for the most part, since June 1, 2020. The Monday following the expiration of the last stay at home order. There have been some exceptions during the spikes the last two winters, but mostly it was the small drivers facilities that temporarily shut down for several weeks.

Comment by Just Sayin Wednesday, Jul 13, 22 @ 5:50 pm
Why does JB keep issuing Executive Orders here? Afraid to ask the legislature to chime in? It has only been 28 months, right?

Comment by Illinoised Thursday, Jul 14, 22 @ 8:18 am