Additional COVID-19 mitigation efforts will be implemented in Region 5 -- which encompasses most of southern Illinois -- starting on Wednesday.
At his Monday briefing, Governor J-B Pritzker said this region as well as Regions 7 and 8 in the Chicago suburbs will face Tier 2 of the resurgence mitigations.
"That means a prohibition on gatherings of more than ten people -- for both indoor and outdoor gatherings. Additional restrictions on sporting and recreational events and tightened restaurant and bar table caps of six per party."
These mitigations do not apply to schools.
As of Monday, Pritzker said Region 5 is seeing an average positivity rate of 11.5%, with more than twice as many COVID-19 patients entering a hospital each day compared to the summer peak in late August.
All of the Tier 2 mitigations are available here.
Pritzker again put pressure on local officials to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.
During his Monday briefing, the governor stressed local officials need to take the virus more seriously and enforce the stricter mitigations.
"I know that locally they think that's immediately good politics, but it's good politics for a very small, very loud minority. The vast majority of people want us to take strong action with regard to mitigations and that takes responsibility at all levels of government."
