Coronavirus

Indiana Not Being Added to Chicago's Travel Order Yet, But City Watching Neighbors ‘Carefully'

The order is assessed on a weekly basis to determine if states should be added or removed from the list of locations travelers must quarantine from

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Chicago won't be adding Indiana to its emergency travel order this week, the city's mayor said, though she noted the city is "watching all of our neighbors very carefully."

"Indiana doesn't quite rise to that level, which is a good thing for the residents of the Hoosier state, but we're watching all of our neighbors very carefully," Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday.

Not all Midwest states are staying low enough to avoid being added to the city's order, however. Lightfoot said Wisconsin will be the latest Midwest state to make it onto the list of states the city requires a quarantine from.

"I think Chicago, we are doing well because we were extremely prudent when we started to reopen up," Lightfoot said. "We didn't go as large with capacity, for example, as other areas across the country. So what we're seeing is cities and towns, particularly across the south through the southwest and on to California are really having significant struggles now because many of those communities took a very different approach to the one that Chicago took. We're also seeing an increase in states around us. Wisconsin, for example, is going to go on our quarantine list later this week."

The city's travel order is evaluated every Tuesday, with any additions taking effect the following Friday.

States are added to the list if they have "a case rate greater than 15 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 resident population, per day, over a 7-day rolling average."

Chicago's travel order, which began on July 6, is assessed every Tuesday to determine if states should be added or removed from the list of locations travelers must quarantine from.

Recent additions to the order include Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa.

Other states included are: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.

It remains unclear which, if any, other states will join Wisconsin in being added to Chicago's list Tuesday.

"We're watching all of our neighbors very, very carefully and we're going to be very prudent," Lightfoot said Monday.

Arwady said travelers entering or returning to Chicago from "states experiencing a surge in new COVID-19 cases" will need to quarantine "for a 14-day period from the time of last contact within the identified state." Essential workers could be exempt from the quarantine requirement, however, as long as their employer certifies their work in writing.

The order is set to remain in effect until further notice.

The move comes as states across the U.S. see surges of coronavirus cases, many shutting down bars and restaurants in an effort to quell or prevent a spike.

New cases have surged in several states across the nation, setting new records, driven mostly by expanding outbreaks in the American South and West.

New York and New Jersey are also asking visitors from several states from the Carolinas to California to quarantine themselves for two weeks.

Still, outside of Chicago, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state likely won't require residents who travel to and from neighboring states to quarantine for two weeks solely because of that travel.

"We don't live in a country where you close the borders between states," Pritzker said during the governor's coronavirus briefing. "And we're not going to stop people who live in Illinois and work in Wisconsin from doing so."

NBC Chicago/Associated Press
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