Chicago on pace for next reopening phase July 1: ‘If people can hang in there’

Chicago’s top health official expects the city to advance to the next phase of reopening from the coronavirus shutdown on July 1.

Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said Friday it’s not out of the question Chicago could keep pace with the rest of the state in moving to Phase 4 as early as June 26 — but that it could take even longer if pandemic conditions deteriorate.

“The real question will be of course what happens over the next few weeks,” Arwady said at a news conference announcing a new city coronavirus data portal.

The next reopening phase allows for gatherings of up to 50 people and lets museums, gyms, restaurants and additional businesses and institutions resume indoor operations at limited capacities.

But city and state officials are waiting to see the potential impact on the spread of the virus following limited Phase 3 reopenings of restaurants and businesses, as well as days of large protests following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.

“I think the protests have served to remind people that there are risks, and so the fact that protesters broadly in Chicago have been wearing face coverings — I’ve been pleased to see that,” Arwady said, urging protesters to keep 6 feet of social distance and self-quarantine for two weeks.

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While no uptick in cases has been noted yet — officials say it will take a few weeks for potential evidence of that in the coronavirus data — the Illinois Department of Public Health announced the latest batch of 595 newly confirmed cases of the coronavirus. That’s the first time the daily number of new infections has fallen below 600 since March 30, capping a week of relatively low numbers.

An additional 77 deaths were also reported, raising the state toll to 6,260.

Nearly 131,200 people have tested positive statewide of the more than 1.1 million people who have been tested. The recovery rate is 93%.

The state has also reported another 181 deaths and 861 non-fatal infections were “probable” cases of COVID-19, though lab tests weren’t performed.

Chicago accounts for more than a third of the statewide figures, with 2,359 coronavirus deaths among 48,924 overall cases. One in 12 Chicagoans has been tested for COVID-19, while one in 57 has tested positive and one in 1,200 has died, Arwady said.

An average of 18 Chicagoans are dying of the coronavirus per day, along with 232 new cases confirmed daily, Arwady said. The virus continues to disproportionately impact communities of color, with about 86 new cases per day affecting Latino residents and 51 among black residents, compared to 19 for white residents.

But the city has shown “very good progress” on its way down from a peak in early May, Arwady said, with numbers heading in the right direction as testing positivity rates improve in every city ZIP code, Arwady said.

“If people can hang in there and keep doing the things that we know work, the things that have given us the progress that we saw in the month of May, we will be okay to continue that cautious reopening carefully,” she said. “But if people think COVID is over, we will have trouble here. No doubt about it.”