Pritzker won't commit to lifting mask mandates, defends COVID mitigation despite harms

[February 05, 2022]  By Greg Bishop |

(The Center Square) – Approaching the two-year mark of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 mandates that included stay-at-home orders, school closures, and restrictions on economic activity, the Democrat is defending his actions.

The courts continue to grapple with legal challenges.

Whether there will be temporary restraining orders issued against mask and exclusion mandates on school students and COVID-19 vaccine or testing mandates on school staff is still up in the air.

Plaintiffs in the case of more than 700 parents suing over mask mandates and dozens of school staff suing over vaccine mandates were seeking class status.

Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow denied class certification in the separate cases Friday. Grischow did not rule on the plaintiffs’ motion to temporarily block the mandates. That ruling is still under advisement, but is expected to be appealed by either side.

Despite COVID-19 metrics “going in the right direction,” Pritzker Friday still wouldn’t say when he’ll lift the mask mandates.
 

"I believe that we should remove masks as soon as we possibly can," Pritzker said. "I'm constantly listening to the doctors and scientists and encouraging them, 'when can we do this, what's the right time, what's the right way to do it.' And so, very hopeful we can make an announcement about that."

Illinois is one of about a dozen states that require masks for schools.

Separately, the Illinois State Board of Education is expected to make a recommendation on vaccine and testing mandates for school staff that would then be brought before the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules.

Meanwhile, an analysis from Johns Hopkins University found government restrictions intended to slow the spread of COVID-19 came with high economic and social costs and limited public health benefits.

"While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted," the authors of the study wrote. "In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument."

Gov. J.B. Pritzker Friday questioned about mask mandates negative impacts from COVID mitigation  

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Asked for reaction, Pritzker Friday said his No. 1 focus was “keeping people alive … safe and healthy.” In the spring of 2020, there was then a 10-week stay-at-home order closing schools and other in-person businesses. That was followed by months of dialed-in capacity restrictions dictated by the governor without any check from the General Assembly.

“It’s the right thing to do, and we’re gonna very carefully evaluate how to keep people safe and healthy while we might bring down the mitigation levels,” Pritzker said.

Pritzker still has a statewide indoor mask mandate in place.

State Rep. Adam Niemerg, R-Dieterich, said the governor shoulders the blame for the negative impacts from restrictions.

“He seems to forget that he’s the one that tells parents that they have to mask their kids or nurses have to choose between vaccination or a job and he shut down businesses, not COVID,” Niemerg told The Center Square.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty released the results of its latest research about school closures over the past two years. It found the mitigations hurt all students across that state, but, according to a study released Friday, the closures hurt low income and minority students the most.

“On average, in schools that shut down in 2020, rates of proficiency declined by about 4.8% more in math and 1.6% more in ELA than schools that remained open,” researchers noted.

In Illinois, Pritzker ordered schools closed to in-person learning in the spring of 2020. Remote learning was implemented and many districts carried that into the fall semester of 2020 and into the spring of 2021. In-person school was required in the fall of 2021, but some districts have been utilizing an “adaptive pause” in coordination with local health authorities evaluating COVID-19 numbers.

The governor’s most recent 30-day disaster proclamation on COVID issued Jan. 7 is set to expire Sunday.