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‘We’re sounding the alarm’: Lightfoot, health officials concerned with uptick in COVID-19 cases
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and health officials say they are "very concerned" about the increase in COVID-19 cases the city has seen in the last week.
CHICAGO - Mayor Lori Lightfoot and health officials say they are "very concerned" about the increase in COVID-19 cases the city has seen in the last week.
Lightfoot said at this point in the virus, the city of Chicago should be seeing cases consistently decrease.
"I'm very concerned," said Lightfoot. "If you look at our data in the last week to 10 days, it feels like October when we saw the second surge happen."
Due to the increase in cases and increase in positivity rate, Lightfoot says the city is not in a place to be discussing additional reopening opportunities, especially indoors.
"The last thing that any of us want to do is take any steps back," said Lightfoot. "But we are in a place where Dr. Arwady and myself are very concerned and we are sounding the alarm."
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Officials concerned as coronavirus cases increase in Illinois
Illinois is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases.
Lightfoot noted that the city is seeing an increase in cases in the age demographic of 18-39 year olds, across all races and ethnicities.
Chicago's positivity rate has increased from 2.7% to 3.2%.
Not only are cases increasing in the city of Chicago, but also across the state of Illinois.
"As I see numbers go up, is that the variance? Is it a blip in the data? You know, what is it exactly," said Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. "I think people are being a little less careful."
Over five million people have been vaccinated in the state, however, in some cases, people have been fully vaccinated and still contracted the virus.
"I have one of my patients that has a daughter who is positive, with an infant that is positive, and she just called me and said she is positive, AND she was fully vaccinated. So she is in that 5% that had a high exposure after vaccination, well after vaccination with immunity who ended up coming down with a case of COVID," said Dr. David Zich from Northwestern Medicine.