If Chicago Public Schools are safe enough to re-open for pre-K and special education students, why are the rest of us being advised to stay home through Jan. 22?
That was the question Monday as Mayor Lori Lightfoot touted the twice-delayed CPS reopening for roughly 77,000 students whose parents have “opted in,” instead of continuing to have their children learn remotely.
It seemed like a disconnect. The mayor insisted it is not.
“Recall that, from the very beginning, schools were exempted from the stay-at-home advisory,” the mayor told reporters at a morning news conference.
Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady added: “If you look at the language of that stay-at-home advisory, it’s about ‘essential.’ We specifically say people who are going to work, who are going to school or who are performing other essential activities should continue to do those. But if there are things that are not essential, we have asked people to limit that.”
Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Lightfoot issued the stay-home advisory and slapped a mandatory, 10-person lid on social gatherings to control a second surge of coronavirus cases that was worse than the first.
That same day, she implored Chicagoans not to gather with extended family for Thanksgiving.
“While this is tough, this whole year has been tough. You must cancel the normal Thanksgiving plans,” Lightfoot said that day.
“If we continue on the path we’re on and you, me and others don’t step up and do more ... we could see at least a thousand more Chicagoans die” by year’s end.
Monday, the mayor and her health commissioner painted a far more optimistic picture of the pandemic in Chicago.
“When we put the stay-at-home advisory in place, we were seeing a really troubling increase in cases, percent positivity. Since November when it peaked, we have been coming back down — even through Thanksgiving, then Christmas and New Year’s. So, we are making steady progress,” she said.
“We extended [the advisory] to make sure it was aligned with what the state was doing. But we are making significant progress.”
Arwady agreed Chicago is “in a much, much better place than we were and, in fact, we’re doing much better than the majority of the country.”
The gradual reopening Lightfoot has likened to a dimmer switch is now back to Tier 2 by statewide order. That required restaurants to close indoor dining rooms a second time.
Lightfoot can order stronger measures in Chicago, but can’t be more lax than state rules.
“Our hospital numbers look good here in Chicago. We are under that 12% positivity. [But] the governor and the state have signaled that they want to watch, sort of, the stabilization after New Year’s, which I’m in agreement with,” Arwady said.
“I do want people to understand, though, that the mitigation comes in steps. … If we’re able to back out of that [Tier 2], that doesn’t yet bring us to indoor dining, for example. It doesn’t yet completely open things back up.”
Arwady said vaccination of Chicago Public School teachers will likely begin in February or March — but only after all health care workers get both doses of vaccine.
