Chicago on pace to reopen more businesses by July 1

Chicago’s top health official said the city remains on track to advance to the next phase of its reopening by July 1, which would allow the reopening of restaurants, museums and other businesses.

Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said Friday that the city’s COVID-19 metrics continue to trend in a positive direction, with fewer daily deaths, cases and hospitalizations being reported.

“If people can hang in there and keep doing the things that we know work, the things that have given us the progress that we saw in the month of May, we will be OK to continue that cautious reopening carefully,” she said. “But if people think COVID is over, we will have trouble here. No doubt about it.”

The next phase would allow for gatherings of up to 50 people and allow gyms, museums, restaurants and other businesses to resume limited indoor operations.

Arwady said the city is averaging 18 new deaths a day and 232 new cases. The number of new cases is down from the roughly 600 per day the city was reporting around Memorial Day. While the drop is a positive trend, Arwady said the city remains at “high risk” for COVID-19.

The goal is to get to “moderate risk,” or fewer than 100 new daily cases.

There’s also been a continued decline in hospitalizations, ICU and ventilator usage, and emergency department visits for influenza or COVID-like symptoms.

The city’s positivity rate for tests is now below 10 percent. The goal is to get below 7 percent.

“No single measure will determine whether we move forward or backward but we’ll be watching all of them as we make that call,” Arwady said.

One uncertainty remains how recent large public gatherings and protests, as well as the partial reopening of businesses, will affect efforts to mitigate the virus’ spread. Arwady said they have not yet seen an uptick in cases, but health officials will continue to monitor the situation.

“We won’t know the full impact of us moving toward reopening or some of the activities for a few weeks,” she said.

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