On October 19, 2020, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the second shut down in the city of Chicago, due to COVID-19. This time, hitting bars and non-essential businesses hard once again.  A list of restrictions has been set in place with the hopes to slow down the rate at which Corona is fastly rising again. Some being the following: bars will now have to close all indoor services,  a liquor curfew of 9 p.m. has been put in place and a major increase in the already placed guidelines. All non-essential businesses and restaurants will now have a strict curfew of 6 a.m.-10 p.m. daily.

The spike in the coronavirus outbreak cases over the past month has sky-rocketed, raising major concern for Chicago health officials, and especially Lori Lightfoot. An average of over six hundred cases being reported every day and a 70% increase in cases over the last two weeks. Scary enough, this amount is very likely to increase over the next upcoming weeks to come.

“This is the time for each of us to step up. I call upon our fellow Chicagoans, to be with us in this fight. This is a moment to make a difference in what our future is going to look like,” Lightfoot addresses.

In Lori Lightfoot’s update on COVID-19 in Chicago, she makes it very clear that this is her last try to keep these businesses and bars open. With the dramatic increase in cases recently, it may be a struggle to keep these places safe and out of people’s harm. To conquer this, it is time for the city to work harder at following these guidelines, and if not, she will not hesitate to take the steps backward and put phase three restrictions back into place.

It was also announced that if the Chicago city rate for COVID-19 positive tests surpasses 8%, there will be nothing more but to close indoor dining.  Throughout the rest of Illinois, Governor J.B. Pritzker decided to take the action to suspend indoor dining in Kankakee, Will, Cook, Dupage and Kane counties.