“We are getting close. Certainly, we’re watching the end of the month as the state is,” Arwady said on Tuesday.
When Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced on Dec. 21, 2021 that the city will enter a vaccination mandate beginning Jan. 3, the city averaged 1,776 confirmed COVID-19 cases a day, according to data from CDPH. That was the highest daily average since December 2020.
The numbers have cooled significantly since then. Chicago is currently averaging 431 cases a day and a 2.0% positivity rate, according to recent data from the CDPH.
To measure the risk of COVID-19 transmission, city officials use metrics that include the number of confirmed cases, the test positivity rate, the number of hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients and the number of beds occupied by COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit (ICU).
To remove the mask and vaccine mandate, Arwady said three of those four metrics would need to reach lower transmission risk. Today, the 431 confirmed cases average is in the high-risk level, the 2.0% test positivity is in the lower risk level, and hospital and ICU are in the substantial risk category with 376 non-ICU COVID-19 patients and 115 ICU COVID-19 patients.