Suburban Cook County follows Chicago with COVID-19 advisory

CHICAGO (AP) - Local health officials issued a stay-at-home advisory for the suburban Chicago area Friday, one day after Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot also urged residents to stay home to fight a surge in COVID-19 cases.

The Cook County Department of Public Health’s advisory is similar to the steps taken by Lightfoot ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Both take effect Monday, last 30 days, advise residents and visitors to venture out only for essential needs, such as going to work or grocery shopping, and set limits on the size of gatherings. Both also stop short of making the restrictions mandatory.

The announcement from the county came as Illinois set a record for confirmed and probable cases for the fourth straight day. The single-day total of 15,415 shattered the record set Thursday by more than 2,700 and brings the total number of cases since the pandemic began to 551,957, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The state agency also reported an additional 27 coronavirus-related deaths, bringing the total number of deaths to 10,504.

“It’s gaining on us and getting ahead of us,” said the director of the state’s health department, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, who repeatedly referred to the virus as “the enemy” as she urged the public to continue to take precautions such as wearing masks. “If we let our guard down we will let the enemy take us over.”

Cook County’s health department said that in all more than 99,000 people in suburban Cook County have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and the rate of positive tests has surpassed 15%.

“Now more than ever, we must come together to stay apart. We know limiting gatherings with friends and family can be hard, but we also know that virtual celebrations will save lives,” Dr. Rachel Rubin, the county’s senior medical officer, said in a statement.

A month ago, Chicago was reporting 500 daily cases on average. Now, the nation’s third-largest city is averaging roughly 1,900 daily cases. In the same time period, the rate of positive tests has nearly tripled to 14%.

Chicago officials have advised against travel to states with high infection rates for months.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has made similar pleas for Illinois residents to stay home, saying he could step up restrictions if things don’t change.

But already, things are changing, as school districts in the Chicago area and across the state are either delaying plans to bring students back to school for in-class instruction, or sending students who are have been coming to school home for online learning at least until the end of November. Some are being told they won’t return to class before Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January.

At the same time, funeral homes in Chicago are notifying families that the maximum people allowed for services is being reduced from 50 to 10.

“We can’t say how it’s going to work or what the response to be, but we are getting the word out now,” said Spencer Leak Sr., whose father started what is now Leak & Sons Funeral Homes in 1933 on the city’s South Side.

“People grieve by participating in the funeral service, and my concern is that if they can’t participate because of these numbers that can impact their grief,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office is in the process of bringing back refrigerated trailers to various hospitals to handle the increase in dead bodies.

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Callahan contributed to this report from Indianapolis.