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(WTTW News)
Chicago authorities have removed California and Puerto Rico from city’s COVID-19 travel advisory Tuesday as the number of coronavirus cases remained high across the country.
Officials returned Connecticut and Washington, DC, to the travel advisory, a week after the state and territory were removed from the advisory.
The advisory now covers 48 states as well as Washington, DC, Guam and the Virgin Islands, said Dr Allison Arwady, chief of the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Unvaccinated visitors to Chicago from those states are urged to self-quarantine for 10 days or register a negative test for the coronavirus within 72 hours of arrival, officials said.
In addition, unvaccinated travelers should get tested three to five days before their departure as well as three to five days after their return, according to new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Even though they are negative for COVID-19, individuals must self-quarantine for seven days. Those who do not pass a test must quarantine themselves for 10 days after travel, according to the new guidelines.
Unvaccinated travelers should avoid being around people at increased risk of serious illness for 14 days, even with a negative test, according to the new guidelines.
The city’s travel order, first implemented in July 2020, did not include any states as of June 1, as vaccination efforts reduced cases and spurred reopening across the United States. On June 29, authorities announced that the order would become an advisory, as cases of COVID-19 remained low across the country.
However, progress in stopping the spread of COVID-19 has been reversed with the emergence of the more transmissible delta variant, officials said.
California is the only state and Puerto Rico the only territory where the number of confirmed new cases of COVID-19 is less than 15 per day per 100,000 population, the standard for states and territories to be added to the travel advisory, Chicago officials said.
Chicago has an average of 15.3 new cases per day per 100,000 population. Illinois has an average of 22.4 cases per day, according to data from the Chicago Department of Public Health.
West Virginia, Guam and Alaska have the highest daily COVID-19 case rates in the country, officials said. The national case rate is 35.8, officials said.
An average of 414 Chicagoans have been diagnosed with the coronavirus every day over the past week, down 8% from the previous week, according to data from the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Ten companies were cited between Thursday and Sunday for flouting the city’s interior mask mandate, city officials said.
The city’s test positivity rate is 3%, down from 3.6% a week ago.
Daily hospitalizations have fallen by 50% over the past seven days, and 62.3% of all Chicagoans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to city data.
No one was cited for violating the travel order, which could have triggered fines of $ 100 to $ 500 per day to a maximum fine of $ 7,000, according to the town hall.
City officials said the advisory is designed to be part of a COVID-19 education campaign.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
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