CHICAGO — Public health officials Tuesday added Kentucky, Wyoming, Texas and Nevada to the city’s emergency travel quarantine list that now includes 22 states and Puerto Rico deemed coronavirus hotspots.
No states previously designated as COVID-19 hotspots for having a weekly average of more than 15 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents were removed from the list that requires travelers entering or returning to Chicago from states currently covered by the Order must quarantine for a 14-day period from the time of last contact within the identified state.
The travel restriction requirements for folks traveling to and from Kentucky, Wyoming, Texas and Nevada take effect Friday. The quarantine mandate currently applies to the following locales: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Under the travel quarantine order essential workers are exempt if they must travel for work but must limit their activities to work-related activities and avoid public spaces as much as possible, officials said.
Folks traveling for medical care and parental shared custody reasons, as well as to travelers passing through designated states for less than 24 hours in the course of travel, also are exempt from the self-quarantine mandate, officials said. However, if your final destination is a state on the designated list, then you must quarantine for 14 days, even if you are in that state for less than 24 hours.
More information is available at chicago.gov/coronavirus.
This article originally appeared on the Chicago Patch