'You Should Not Be Traveling' Chicago Health Commissioner Warns

CHICAGO — Chicago's emergency travel order now boils down to a simple phrase: "You should not be traveling."

Public Health Department Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady advised Chicagoans that it's time to cancel Thanksgiving travel plans amid a nationwide resurgence of coronavirus cases.

"Right now COVID is surging across the entire United States. And you run the risk of bringing COVID with you if you're traveling from Chicago. ... If you've not cancelled your Thanksgiving travel plans, now is a good time to be having that really difficult conversation with friends and family," she said.

Traveling to 11 states that have more daily positive coronavirus cases per 100,000 people than Illinois requires a 14-day self-quarantine. Only Vermont, Hawaii and Maine have fewer daily cases per capita than Illinois. Arwady said she doesn't recommend Chicagoans travel there, either.

If you're traveling to the remaining states and Puerto Rico, Chicago's travel order requires folks to either quarantine for 14 days or have a negative test result 24 hours before returning to the city. More details are available on the city's website.

Coronavirus cases continue to spread at an alarming rate in Chicago. About 1-in-15 Chicagoans are currently COVID-19 positive. That's between 125,000 and 180,000 people have coronavirus that is "active, infectious," Arwady said. The number of positive cases continues to grow, and there are no signs of a slowdown.

"We are at a point where the number of new cases, every twelve days, are doubling. ... By the time we're in Thanksgiving we could be talking more than 4,000 cases per day," Arwady said.

"That curve has not yet shown signs of flattening, which is why we have needed to put the stay-at-home advisory in place, which is why we have need to put additional restrictions in place. And it's why additional restrictions may be coming. I ask you, please, take this seriously."