3 years, 3 months ago by Scott Hardy
Area into Phase 4; bars and restaurants can offer limited indoor service
The Illinois Department of Public Health says that not only can the COVID-19 region for West-Central Illinois move out of Tier 3 mitigations, it's now in Phase 4 of the state's mitigation plan.
The IDPH said Monday that Region 3 was meeting all the requirements to move out of Tier 3. In fact, it's meeting the requirements to get out of the tier system, meaning that bars and restaurants can now re-open with limited indoor capacity, and events can be held with 50 or fewer people. The requirements include a positivity rate of less than 6.5 per cent for three straight days, 20 percent available staffed ICU hospital beds for three straight days and no increase in the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 for 7 out of 10 days. IDPH says it's changing how it measures the tiers, due to the state of Illinois launching what it called "multiple health care staffing contracts to increase hospital staffing." The Department says in a statement that they and hospital leaders across the state "feel confident that metrics can safely move away from utilizing medical/surgical bed limits" as how they determine mitigations for regions.
Region 3 includes nearly all of West-Central Illinois, as well as several counties just outside the St. Louis area, as well as Sangamon County in Central Illinois.
