Good morning, Chicago. Yesterday, Illinois public health officials reported 674 new cases of COVID-19 and 24 additional deaths. The downward trend of vaccinations also continued, with 36,372 doses of the vaccine administered Wednesday and a seven-day rolling average of 37,328 daily doses.
Meanwhile, yesterday Mayor Lori Lightfoot made the announcement that Chicago is going to fully reopen on the same day as Illinois — making it the largest U.S. city scheduled to do so by the June 11 date. After more than a year of ever-changing restrictions, this will bring us the closest we’ve been to pre-pandemic life.
How do you feel about the city fully reopening? What questions do you have about it? Email me and let me know.
— Nicole Stock, audience editor
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Chicago will move its full reopening date up three weeks to coincide with Illinois’ planned target of June 11, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Thursday, paving the way for the city to be the closest it’s been to life before COVID-19 since the pandemic started more than a year ago.
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The move from the city came after weeks of the mayor’s administration keeping mum on whether Chicago will push up its previous target date of July 4 for a full opening. Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced early last month that June 11 would be when the rest of the state would fully reopen and on Tuesday said Illinois was on track to meet that mark.
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Illinois Republicans may have been shut out on the key issues this spring, but they did find a unifying theme as the party tries to make its case against Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who’s up for reelection next year.
“How can we trust him?” asked Senate Republican leader Dan McConchie of Hawthorn Woods at one of the many news conferences the out-of-power GOP held to deliver a litany of grievances about Pritzker and Democratic lawmakers.
A 2020 graduate of Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute is one of 33 plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education calling for enforcement of Title IX anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ students at religious institutions.
About a month after Horizon Therapeutics paid $115 million for a 70-acre office complex in Deerfield, workplaces throughout the country began shutting down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than pause plans for its U.S. headquarters, the Irish drug company forged ahead.
Now, it has been designed for a post-pandemic world. It includes a cafeteria with several food stations and a coffee bar, both of which accept mobile orders. The seating area is large enough to hold hundreds of employees for meetings or events. And there’s even one work-from-home touch — Peloton bikes that employees can use with their own accounts.
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Whether it’s your first summer in Chicago or your 40th, nothing feels quite as satisfying as that first breezy patio hang. But with such a wealth of options — particularly after last year’s tighter indoor dining restrictions prompted many restaurants and bars to expand outdoor spaces — how does one find the perfect patio? We have the list for you.