Chicago Travel Advisory: 16 more states off the list
CHICAGO (CBS) -- As COVID-19 cases begin to drop across the country, more states are coming off the Chicago Travel Advisory.
The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced that 16 states are now off the department's list, which now has 18 states and one territory.
The states removed on Tuesday include: Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.
According to CDPH, eight states with daily case rates below 15 per 100,000 residents could be removed from the Chicago Travel Advisory next week.
"For any state or territory to be removed from the Travel Advisory, it must have a daily COVID-19 case rate of under 15 for two consecutive weeks," according to the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Last week, neighboring Indiana and Wisconsin were taken off the CDPH list.
"For the first time in months there are now more states not on our COVID-19 Travel Advisory than there are on it," said CDPH Commissioner Allison Arwady. "But that doesn't mean COVID-19 has gone away or that it still doesn't pose a risk to anyone, especially the unvaccinated. COVID-19 is still around, and too many Chicagoans remain unprotected, especially in communities that have borne the brunt of the outbreak."
On Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Dr. Arwady marked the two-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 death in the city.
That person, Patricia Frieson, was from Chicago's Auburn Gresham neighborhood. According to the city, she was the first person in Illinois to die from COVID-19 on March 16, 2020. Tragically, her sister passed away just days later, too, and more than 7,500 other Chicagoans have died from COVID-related causes in the two years since. It was in mid-March 2020 that significant mitigation efforts were put in place in an effort to keep the virus contained, including a statewide 'stay-at-home' order.
"It's been a long, challenging two years since COVID-19 first hit home here in Chicago," Lightfoot said. "Our health care and other front-line workers have been heroes, and I can't imagine what the toll would have been without them. But we have lost too many lives, including Patricia Frieson and unfortunately thousands more. So, this is a time to remember and honor them, and also to recommit ourselves to tackling the health and racial disparities that made this pandemic so devastating, especially in our communities of color."
