State Senator Sue Rezin (R-Morris) is calling on the Illinois Senate to hold a public hearing to shed greater light on the Pritzker Administration’s mitigation rules, which are being implemented in several regions across the state.
“Restaurants across the state are being forced to shut down despite the lack of data showing they are the culprit for the recent increase in COVID-19 cases,” said Sen. Rezin. “The Governor has be asked many times to provide the ‘data and science’ he claims is behind his resurgence mitigation rules, yet we have yet to see it. If this information is being used to support his rules, wouldn’t that data be readily available? Why is he hiding it? Or does it simply not exist? These are questions Illinoisans deserve answers to.”
Sen. Rezin also argues that the Governor has changed his own rules, completely disregarding his original mitigation strategy, which would have allowed restaurants to remain open under reduced capacity.
“When Illinois entered into Phase 4 of reopening, the Governor announced his resurgence mitigation plan, which included a tiered system of mitigations,” said Sen. Rezin. “Under that plan, if a region had three consecutive days of 8% positivity rate, they would be placed into Tier 1, which simply reduced indoor dining capacity. When and why did this plan change to completely shutting down indoor dining service?
“If we don’t allow people to dine at restaurants, where there are regulations, they will simply gather privately in their homes with larger groups, where there are no regulations. People will gather, so why not provide them with options to do it responsibly?”