A comparison of mask-mandated Illinois to its mandate-less neighbors during Omicron shows that Illinois’ restrictions have failed to provide any benefit so far. In fact, a review of publicly-available CDC data shows Illinois’ per capita COVID cases increased more rapidly than all its neighbors, while the state’s deaths per capita are now higher than all of its neighbors except Indiana.
Illinois is one of just 11 states to maintain a statewide mask mandate (see appendix). Chicago and Cook County also have vaccine passport requirements. None of Illinois’ five neighbors have a statewide mask mandate and Indiana, Missouri and Iowa have all passed laws that ban vaccine passports.
One month into Omicron (Jan, 1, 2022), Illinois had about 150 COVID cases per 100,000. In contrast, all of its neighbors had 100 or fewer cases per 100,000, with Iowa and Missouri running at about half the level of Illinois.
Two months in, cases in Illinois look no different than all of its neighbors except for Kentucky, which is still running a higher per capita case load.
As for COVID fatalities, Illinois is also faring poorly versus its neighbors. Deaths have been trending up consistently since Omicron arrived, with no evidence that the state’s mandates are having any impact.
At one death per 100,000 on February 3, Illinois’ COVID fatality is only better than Indiana’s, and it remains far higher than Kentucky and Missouri’s, which are both below 0.2 deaths per 100,000.
The data above is in line with ongoing research demonstrating the ineffectiveness of masks and mandates, the most recent being the meta study from Johns Hopkins. Those researchers concluded:
“More specifically, stringency index studies find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average. SIPOs [stay-in-pace orders] were also ineffective, only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average. Specific NPI [non-pharmaceutical interventions] studies also find no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.
While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”
So we know restrictions don’t really work. The bigger question is, do some of them actually make things worse?
You can’t help but wonder if the vaccine passport mandates are actually increasing the risk for Illinois’ most vulnerable to COVID. The vaccine passport can lull the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions into a false sense of security that they are “safe” in restaurants, bars and other such venues, when we know that the vaxxed spread the virus as easily as the unvaxxed.
The latest COVID numbers continue to show that it’s the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions that continue to be the target of the virus.
Since Omicron hit on December 1, over 82 percent of deaths have been of those aged 60 and older. That’s roughly in line with the 86 percent we’ve seen since the pandemic started in March 2020.
And when it comes to comorbidities, the Cook County Medical Examiner data shows that of the county’s 2,428 deaths since Omicron, 90 percent died with comorbidities.
The possibility of vaccine passports increasing the danger to vaxxed elderly and comorbid Illinoisans is real – the state’s significant number of breakthrough deaths tell us that.
As the last five week’s of Illinois COVID death data shows, nearly 40 percent of all deaths were of the vaxxed. Forty-six percent of deaths last week were vaxxed residents.
The state’s masks and mandates aren’t working. Worse, they could actually be doing additional harm.
Illinois should join the vast majority of states that have ended their COVID restrictions.