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Chicago’s top health official said on Tuesday that the city would not consider easing its restrictions on coronaviruses until one particular measure drops.
This number is the daily average number of new cases, said Dr Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, at a press conference, highlighting a parameter she has referred to repeatedly throughout. pandemic as the number that largely guided health officials in their decision. -manufacturing process.
As of Tuesday, the city was recording a moving average of 307 new cases per day, Arwady said. That number is lower than the roughly 1,000 new cases the city was seeing on average every day at the height of the pandemic in early May, she said – but still not as low as officials expect.
“It’s really been pretty consistent over the last couple of weeks,” Arwady said. “We have seen it flatten out but we have yet to see the decline that we would like to see.”
Arwady said last month that this figure “is the best reflection of the burden of our disease” and that the current daily average places Chicago in a “state of high incidence.”
Health officials want that number to drop below 200 to get out of the “high-incidence state” and before considering loosening restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the virus, Arwady said.
The city fell below 200 in June, Arwady said, but surpassed that figure again in July, prompting Chicago officials to shut down indoor service at bars and other establishments that serve alcohol without a food license and to reduce the size of parties allowed in restaurants from 10 to 6 people, among other changes.
Asked about the possibility of lifting those restrictions, especially the size of restaurant parties, Arwady said health officials would not consider it until the city finds an average of 200 new cases per day.
“When we think of the number of people who gather at an event, especially if they get together in a setting like a restaurant, where you can’t wear a mask at least while you eat and drink, we really think what is the risk of someone having COVID in a group of a given size, ”Arwady said.
“Even when we were at 200 cases per day on average, there was still, given the number of active cases we have in Chicago, about a 15% chance that in a group of 50 people, for example, you would have someone. ‘one with active COVID who may not know it,’ she continued.
“We won’t think about easing these restrictions until we get back down to 200 cases,” Arwady said. “We get less than 200 cases, we come out of a high incidence state, then we can start thinking again about, ‘Are there any sure ways to reopen more?'”
Arwady added that as long as Chicago continues to see between 200 and 400 new cases per day on average, the city will remain in a “waiting pattern.”
“I want to be able to advance as much as everyone else, but until we see progress, we will not seek to develop further,” she added.
Arwady had previously said that if the city averages 400 new cases per day, which “really marks a line in the sand,” the city could institute more restrictions or even cancel a phase of its reopening.
According to the CRPD, 400 cases per day is the equivalent of the number the state uses to determine whether states should be added to the city’s travel order, which requires a 14-day quarantine.
“It’s the equivalent of having to go back to phase three, really pulling out of the major business,” Arwady said last month.
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