Illinois residents to “stay at home” until April 7

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Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Illinois will go on a “stay at home” order and that K-12 schools will be closed until at least April 8 during his 3 p.m. press conference on Friday, March 20.

The “stay at home” order will go into effect on Saturdy, March 21 at 5 p.m. until the end of the day on April 7.

“You’ll still be able to leave your house to go to the grocery store to get food, you’ll still be able to visit a pharmacy, go to a medical office or hospital or to gas up your car at a gas station. You’ll still be able to go running and hiking and walk your dog. Many, many people will still go to work,” Ptitzker said.

“For the vast majority of you already taking precautions. Your lives will not change very much. There is absolutely no need to rush out to a grocery store or gas station; on Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and every day thereafter, those will be available to you. 

“Agriculture and the press, veterinarians and plumbers, laundromats and banks, roads, bridges and transit: the fundamental building blocks that keep our society safe and steady will not be closing down. You can still pick up dinner from your local restaurant, pick up your prescriptions and just spend time with your family. 

The “stay-at-home” order means that all non-essential businesses must stop operating, though. 

“If you can work from home and aren’t already doing so, now is the time when you must,” he said. 

“This executive order is fundamentally about the rest of us. And what we can do to support the people on the front lines of this fight, and the people most vulnerable to its consequences. We know this will be hard. And we’re looking at every tool that we have to help you through this crisis.”

Pritzker said that the state does not have the resources or capacity to monitor every individual’s behavior, but law enforcement has been instructed to monitor for violations and take action when necessary.

For those who are being ordered to stay at home, Illinois will halt evictions across the state.

“We need our local leaders to help ensure our families do not lose their homes,” he said.

Pritzker announced that Illinois school districts will continue to serve meals to students during this time. 

“I wish I could stand up here and tell you when your schools will safely reopen,” he said. “But that is not an answer that I have at this time.

“The easy thing to say today is that soon, everything will go back to the way it was,” Pritzker said. “But I want to be honest with you about that too. We don’t know yet all the steps we’re going to have to take to get this virus under control.”

He believes, though, that Illinois will follow in the footsteps of how it responded to the Chicago Fire of 1871.

“When the ash is cleared we passed laws requiring buildings to be built with fireproof material,” he said. “We invented skyscrapers. Chicago went from a small Midwest town to one of the biggest cities in the United States. And just to make a point, we built the Chicago Fire Academy on the very spot where the Great Chicago Fire started.”

He said that today Illinois’ resolve is taking on COVID-19 in the same resolve.

In the coming weeks Pritzker believes that COVID-19 testing will be expanded to test for the virus more efficiently; and he said that scientists and doctors are working on treatments.

“They’re going to learn,” Pritzker said. “And as they learn, they’re going to innovate. They’re already on a path to develop a vaccine, our healthcare infrastructure will adapt, because it must.”

The decision to go on a “stay-at-home” order and to extend the potential date for school reopening has not been an easy one, though. 

“I’d like to take a minute to give you a window into my decision making, because I think you have a right to know why I’ve taken the actions that I’ve taken,” Pritzker said. “You have a right to the truth. As difficult as it may be to hear because you can bear it. 

“Over the last few weeks I’ve reached out to and relied upon some of the best medical experts, epidemiologists, mathematicians and modelers to help me understand what the progression of this disease will look like in Illinois. 

“My bedrock has been to rely upon science: real, actual science around infection rates and potential mortalities. In my discussions with these experts I’ve asked for honesty and hard truths. I asked that choices and consequences of those choices be laid out for me as clearly and starkly as possible. I’ve asked every one of these experts what action can I take to save the most lives. Well they’ve come back to me with one inescapable conclusion: to avoid the loss of potentially tens-of-thousands of lives. We must enact an immediate stay at home order for the state of Illinois. 

“I fully recognize that in some cases, I am choosing between saving people’s lives and saving people’s livelihoods. But ultimately you can’t have a livelihood if you don’t have your life.”