Note: The news conference can be watched live in the video player above beginning at around 1 p.m.
Chicago's top doctor is set to give an update Tuesday on the city's COVID-19 "outbreak" as well as its vaccination effort and travel advisory.
Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady will give the update during a news conference at 1 p.m. from City Hall, the department said. She will "provide an update on the COVID-19 outbreak in Chicago and vaccination efforts, as well as the City’s Travel Advisory," the city says.
The news conference can be watched live in the video player above.
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The update comes at a time when the average daily number of new cases in Chicago is up to 234 per day - a 40% increase over the previous week.
That figure is also nearly seven times the low of 34 that the city saw in late June but remains significantly lower than the more than 700 cases per day the city was seeing earlier this year and last, before vaccines were widely available.
Hospitalizations in Chicago are up 15% and deaths are up 60% from last week, per the city's data. The positivity rate in testing is up to 3.3% as of Tuesday, an increase from 2.6% last week, which was up from 1.5% the week before and 1% three weeks prior.
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On Friday, Chicago surpassed the threshold of 200 new cases per day on average, which put the city into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "substantial" transmission category. The CDC updated its guidance last week to recommend that fully vaccinated people should wear masks in indoor settings again in areas of the U.S. that are seeing "substantial" or "high" transmission of COVID-19.
Once the city passed that 200 case mark, CDPH issued a recommendation that all residents over the age of 2 wear masks in public indoor settings, regardless of vaccination status.
Also last week, Chicago added nine additional states to its travel advisory, for a total of 14 on the list recommending that anyone entering the city from those areas test negative for COVID-19 or quarantine upon arrival.
Last Tuesday, the city added Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming back to the list. They joined Florida, Louisiana and Nevada, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, which were added the week before, plus Missouri and Arkansas which were added two weeks prior and all remained on the list.
Increases in COVID metrics pushed those newly added states over the threshold of 15 cases per day per 100,000 people to get onto the "orange" list. Any below that mark are on the "yellow" list, with public health officials still warning against non-essential travel.
"Any unvaccinated people traveling from these states and territories are advised to obtain a negative COVID-19 test result no more than 72 hours prior to arrival in Chicago or quarantine for a 10-day period upon arrival. Vaccinated individuals do not need to quarantine or receive a negative test," CDPH said.
Tuesday's update also comes just days after the conclusion of Lollapalooza - Chicago's biggest music festival that was allowed to return to Grant Park this year at full capacity.
The event - canceled last year due to the pandemic - returned to the city with new health protocols in place as COVID cases continued to rise again.
To enter Lollapalooza, concert-goers were required to provide a printed copy of their COVID vaccine card, vaccine record or negative coronavirus test within 72 hours of entering.
But multiple infectious disease experts expressed doubt whether mask requirements and social distancing would be followed and warned that the festival could cause case rates to rise even more.
