Illinois to relax COVID testing, vaccine requirements in education, health care industries
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Some industries in Illinois will have some COVID-19 testing and vaccine requirements relaxed.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed an updated executive order on Wednesday. The updated executive order amends testing requirements for some unvaccinated health care employees and removes mandates for some other industries, including schools.
Currently, healthcare workers who are unvaccinated need to be tested for the virus at least once a week.
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Under the updated requirements, unvaccinated healthcare workers, such as at hospitals, will only need to be tested in an area of moderate community level transmission, as recommended by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Unvaccinated staff members at long-term care facilities will need to test twice a week if they are in an area of substantial or high community level transmission of the virus.
It's not just the healthcare industry seeing an update to vaccine and testing requirements.
The governor's office announced a vaccine mandate for higher education employees and students and emergency medical service providers will not be reissued.
More COVID-related requirements will likely be relaxed in the future, according to the governor.
"As we continue to move toward living with this virus, my administration will relax some requirements while continuing to protect the most vulnerable and ensuring we can get every federal dollar our residents are eligible to receive," Gov. Pritzker said in a press release on Wednesday.
The governor also continued to urge residents to get vaccinated. Anyone six months and older is eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. To find a vaccine site near you, go to https://www.vaccines.gov/.
Andy Carrigan is the Content Manager for the Rockford Register Star and the Journal-Standard in Freeport. You can get ahold of him at acarrigan@rrstar.com
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Illinois Gov. Pritzker relaxes COVID-19 requirements in certain areas
