Governor J.B. Pritzker said yesterday during his daily COVID-19 press conference that Illinois’ State Fairs are not likely to happen this year. “I think it’s highly unlikely that we’ll be able to hold our state fairs. I’ve been to the state fairs. I think many people have. You know that this will be many people packed together in buildings or even on pathways, so I do not believe that we’ll be able to open the state fair. But I do want to point out to people that as something I said yesterday, and I’m very hopeful for and that is, we have many treatments that are in the works. The researchers and experts are hard at work now. There’s one that’s been emergency approved by the FDA called Remdesivir. I hope there will be many others and maybe by the time these larger events roll around, we might be able to have a treatment that’s very effective. And then, I think there is the possibility.”
Pritzker’s announcement comes after the Macoupin County Fair announced Monday that it was canceling its schedule this year. The Pike County Fair announced Wednesday morning that it would also be canceling this year. Other West Central Illinois counties are currently in limbo on whether they will hold their fairs during the summer. There have been unconfirmed talks that many fairs will push their schedules to late Fall in hopes of the COVID-19 rate of infection subsiding.
The Illinois Department of Public Health announced yesterday that it had confirmed 2270 new positive cases and 136 additional deaths over the last 24 hours across the state.