Chicago travel order: City removes 4 states from COVID advisory list

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The Chicago Department of Public Health removed four states from its weekly COVID-19 Travel Advisory Tuesday.

The city's COVID-19 quarantine advisory includes 41 states and two territories after the removal of Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland and Mississippi.

They were among the six states and territories whose daily COVID case rates per 100,000 residents were below 15 in last week's Travel Advisory. States are removed from the Travel Advisory when they maintain a daily COVID case rate below 15 per 100,000 residents in two consecutive weeks, city officials said. An additional eight states and territories - Alabama, New Jersey, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and the Virgin Islands - whose daily COVID case rates are currently below 15, could come off the Travel Advisory next week.

Currently, every state or territory except for California, Connecticut, D.C., Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi and Puerto Rico.

Officials recommend that unvaccinated travelers should get tested one to three days before leaving on the trip as well as getting tested three to five days after returning. Unvaccinated travelers are asked to self-quarantine for seven days after returning from travel even if they test negative. Those who do not get tested should self-quarantine for 10 days after travel and avoid those at high-risk for COVID for 14 days after travel.

The U.S. average daily case rate per 100,000 residents is 17.8 - down from 20.4 last week. Four weeks ago the national daily case rate per 100,000 residents was 35.8. Illinois' daily case rate currently is 12.9, down slightly from 13.2 last week. Chicago's daily case rate per 100,000 residents is 10.5.

The states and territories with the highest daily case rates currently tend to be in the West, or Upper Midwest, such as Montana, Minnesota, and North Dakota.

"COVID is not through," CDPH Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said, "and as we begin to spend more time indoors, we must keep our guard up. Vaccination, along with common sense masking and social distancing, still offers us our best defense against COVID."

The video in the player above is from an earlier report.