PEORIA, Ill. – A Sangamon County judge is expected to issue a ruling Friday regarding a lawsuit filed against 145 Illinois school districts regarding the mask mandate in the state’s schools.
Peoria County Regional Superintendent of Schools Beth Crider says if the Springfield-area judge’s decision affects the mandate, she’s still going to urge school districts mask up.
“It will still be our recommendation moving forward, because we want everyone in school, every day, and not have to use the remote learning option,” said Crider, at Wednesday’s Tri-County COVID-19 briefing.
Crider says she will also likely utilize the five day quarantine recommendation for students and staff with COVID if that becomes the case.
“It’s back to the beginning of social distancing, washing your hands, and wearing a mask, are our best strategies in that congregate setting where we’re all together in one space, and eating together, and in classrooms together, that masking is our best tool moving forward to stop the spread,” said Crider.
Crider says she’s aware of some local parents who are a part of the 700-parent lawsuit filed by attorney Thomas DeVore, who’s filed similar suits over the course of the pandemic. She does expect whatever ruling, however, to be tied up in an appellate court after it’s made.
Meantime, you may be hearing a lot of people suggest that the nation may be on “the other side” of a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant.
But, Peoria City/County Health Department Administrator Monica Hendrickson says, not so fast.
“Overall, our numbers are improving,” said Hendrickson, at Wednesday’s briefing. “But, this is still a long road ahead of us. Just because we’re not feeling that rush of pressure that we were seeing a few weeks ago, it does not mean that we are able to stop working continuously on trying to stem the continuous spread of this virus.”
On the plus side, the seven-day rolling average of new COVID cases in the Tri-Counties is now down to 595, from 667 last week.
In total, 87,210 COVID cases have been reported since the pandemic began. The number of deaths passed 1,000 last week, and is up 28 since then, to a total of 1,036.
The average number of ICU beds in use in the Tri-Counties is at 39 per day, which Hendrickson says is a stable number. Non-ICU beds in use is down to 175 per day. Some hospitalization data, however, is not available, according to Hendrickson.
