Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration has announced a series of changes to the state’s COVID mitigation strategies, including eliminating vaccine requirements for college students and faculty members.
The new rules will also ease testing requirements at long-term care facilities and hospitals that are certified through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to a press release.
Vaccine mandates will remain in place for staff at K-12 schools, as well as at daycares, state-run congregate care facilities and other locations that are not CMS-certified, according to the press release.
“As we continue to move toward living with this virus, my administration will relax some requirements while continuing to protect the most vulnerable and ensuring we can get every federal dollar our residents are eligible to receive,” Pritzker said in a statement.
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Under the new changes, college students, faculty and staff members will no longer be required to show proof of COVID vaccination.
In addition, testing requirements for unvaccinated staff members at long-term care facilities and hospitals will also be eased. That testing, which was being conducted weekly, will now only be required once a week in areas where there is “moderate community level transmission” of COVID, per CDC guidelines.
If an area moves to “high community level transmission” of COVID, then staffers at the aforementioned facilities will be required to get tested twice a week if they are unvaccinated.
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Finally, the Pritzker administration says that it has made other changes in recent weeks, including restarting normal jail-to-prison inmate transfers and other mitigations.
