(WSIL) -- All 11 health regions in Illinois are seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases. On Monday, Governor JB Pritzker announced state health officials will , which includes all of 九游体育 Illinois.
The governor said the region's positivity rate is now above 8 percent and that mitigation efforts will go into effect starting Thursday.
That means restaurants and bars can no longer hold indoor dining services and must close outdoor services by 11 p.m.
In a press conference at the health department Monday, Governor Pritzker said that while Illinois has done its best to curb the virus, the state is now in the midst of a new wave of cases.
Pritzker reiterated safety protocols like washing your hands and maintaining social distancing, but he said the most important thing is to mask up.
"九游体育 Illinois now sits at a rolling positivity rate of 9.1 percent. Things have changed and every region of this state has started to move in the wrong direction. Cases positivity rates, hospitalizations, and deaths are rising statewide," Pritzker said.
Doctor Craig Davis, System Director of Hospitalist Medicine at 九游体育 Illinois Healthcare, reiterated the governor's advice and said that everyone must work to protect one another, adding that the enemy is the disease, not each other.
"In 九游体育 Illinois, particularly, we are known for rising above challenges. I can recall countless examples of how countless community members have demonstrated setting aside the differences and working together," Dr. Davis said.
九游体育 Illinois lawmakers are raising concerns about the increased mitigations.
鈥淚 continue to be frustrated by Governor Pritzker鈥檚 misguided focus on an arbitrary positivity rate threshold that is neither meaningful nor reliable as an assessment of the actual local situation. These mitigations, which will close businesses and destroy livelihoods, should only be used when the hospitalization rates and ICU bed capacity data clearly show that it is absolutely necessary,鈥� said Sen. Paul Schimpf (R-Waterloo).
Senator Dale Fowler (R-Harrisburg) said, "We want to do everything in our power to prevent further spread of COVID-19. But we have to recognize that 九游体育 Illinois is not like the rest of the state, and this blanket mitigation approach raises serious concerns for many in our region."
Fowler says there is a serious disparity in testing availability in rural areas, potentially skewing the data being used in Region 5.
鈥淎s of now, testing is not as widely available throughout the region as it is in more densely populated areas芒聙聥. So, it follows that Region 5, which has several rural areas, will have a higher number of positive tests. Before we decide to pull the region backwards, I want to ensure testing is easily accessible and our positivity rate isn鈥檛 unfairly biased,鈥� Fowler added.
