Mattoon Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ed Dowd | Contributed photo
Mattoon Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ed Dowd | Contributed photo
Mattoon Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ed Dowd believes it will be challenging for Coles County to reach Phase 3 of Illinois’ COVID-19 reopening plan by the end of the month.
In an interview with 101.3 WMCI, Dowd explained this is largely due to the fact that Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Restore Illinois plan divides the state into only four regions, with Coles County being part of a region encompassing a total of 39 counties and major cities such as Champaign, Galesburg and Springfield.
“Even though Coles County hasn’t had a positive case in over 25 days, we have to be judged based on almost a third of the entire state including areas that are hotspots,” Dowd said in the May 7 interview. “I understand that they have to regionalize this but to make it such a big region doesn’t make sure.”
The region is currently in Phase 2, which is the flattening of the rate of infection. Among the criteria to move to Phase 3, which is recovery, the region must be at or under a 20 percent positive testingrate and have no overall increase in COVID-19-related hospital admissions for 28 days.
“Coles County has done a great job following the guidelines, social distancing, doing everything right,” Dowd said. “Now we have to rely on all the other counties to do their job right before we can move forward.”
As of May 14, Illinois reported 87,937 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, including 3,928 deaths. Coles County has had 62 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
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