Three Illinois Regions will move into Tier 2 mitigations Friday after being in Tier 3 since Nov. 20.
Regions 1,2, 5 have met the requirements: average test positivity rate of less than 12-percent for three consecutive days, three-day average of staffed ICU and hospital bed availability above 20-percent for three consecutive days and declining 7-day average of hospitalizations for seven of the last 10 days.
Region 6, including Mahomet, has met three three of the four criteria, but are only at a 6-day decrease of hospitalizations, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health website.
Once Region 6 meets all mitigation requirements, it will be classified in Tier 2.
Tier 2 mitigations expand gatherings beyond household to 10 people or less; indoor sports and recreation activities resume with limits; casinos, entertainment venues and cultural institutions including museums can reopen with capacity limits. Restaurants will still be required to offer only curbside or take out until a region meets Tier 1 criteria — at which time limitations will be 25 people or 25-percent capacity.
During Tuesday’s Village of Mahomet board meeting, trustee David Johnson voiced his frustration with Champaign County Public Health Department enforcing the IDPH mitigations when other counties throughout the state are not.
Village Administrator Patrick Brown noted that based on the total population, Mahomet COVID-19 numbers are comparable to those in communities of Champaign and Urbana.
Mahomet has held steady with an average of 72 new cases per day over the last 14 days.
On Monday, the Mahomet-Seymour School District held their second COVID-19 antigen test day, identifying six cases, and having another case reported.
COVID-19 number at Mahomet-Seymour school in January are outpacing those in previous months. In the first 14 days of the year, and with 7 days of four-day a week school (a total of 2480 — 76.5-percent — of students attending in person), Mahomet-Seymour has recorded 33 positive COVID-19 cases and 124 students placed in a 10-day quarantine period.
The district also had to close a Pre-K classroom this week due to exposure and not being able to find substitute teachers.
Brown said it is hard to know when Region 6 will be able to open restaurants again.
“It’s reached the point of frustration for a lot of people, a lot of restaurants,” he said.
Brown added that the salt on the wound is that patrons, including himself, are going to restaurants outside of Champaign County to eat inside.
“Everywhere around us, people are still going and eating out,” he added.
Brown reported that another Mahomet business that was allowing people to eat inside was visited by the Champaign Department of Public Health last week.
Brown said that the surge that was predicted didn’t come after Thanksgiving.
“Based on the lag time, we’re actually coming out of a spike before Thanksgiving even happened.,” Brown said.
Brown said people are ready to start moving around again.
“I’m an advocate for our businesses,” he said. “The reality is if people in Champaign County are driving out of this county to go somewhere else to eat out because they can’t go next door and eat out someplace, then my feeling is, let’s find a way to make things safer for those restaurants in this county that can protect the customers.”
