North Cook News

The new COVID-19 proof of vaccine requirement for businesses and park districts across Cook County is overreach, according to Republican state Rep. Tom Morrison.

“Cook County is striving to lead the nation on how to govern badly with incoherent and heavy-handed policies on residents and businesses, follow them or they'll threaten, they’ll fine or just shut them down,” Morrison said at a recent news conference on the issue. “The COVID-19 virus is spreading between people, but it's spreading regardless of vaccine status.”

Morrison argues that with vaccines and even boosters now readily available, the time for mandates is over. 

“It's time to end these endless and onerous emergency orders at a local, county and state level,” he added. “Gov. Pritzker, Mayor Lightfoot, President Toni Preckwinkle, it's time to stop moving the goalposts. The Wall Street Journal just extensively highlighted the enormous population migrations from lockdown states like Illinois, California and New York toward those states that kept their economies and schools largely open.”

By Morrison’s account based on Census Bureau data, at least 151,000 people left Illinois for other states between the spring of 2020 and summer of 2021.

“Our residents and businesses that remain have faced so much adversity already,” he added. “I talked with several business owners in my district in Suburban Cook County and surrounding areas and they want to know where is Cook County's science and data to justify these specific actions.”

In Chicago, the proof of vaccine rule will apply to everyone age 5 and older and includes restaurants, bars, gyms and other venues like sports and entertainment arenas, NBC Chicago reported.

Morrison argues it all adds up for more trouble for industries like the state’s already hard-hit tourism sector.

“Here’s the reason why this is such a big problem: most of the rest of the country is not doing this kind of mandate, and so what happens to the unsuspecting traveler who arrives from out of state and suddenly they find they can't dine in here. It creates an unwelcoming situation and it leaves a bad taste for our area,” he added. “So in terms of event planners, they are making plans, not just months in advance but sometimes years in advance, and for an event planner it just makes it easier to choose a venue outside of Cook County or even outside of Illinois.”

Morrison said the mandate strikes him as just more politics.

“If it really was a crisis, why did they wait 12 days?” he asked. “Why did they wait until after the busy Christmas and New Year celebrations had taken place?”

In some ways, Morrison argues, the state has become its own worst enemy.

“Car jackings, shootings, smash-and-grabs, these are daily occurrences,” he added. “High taxes, heavy regulations, restrictions, these are the things that are afflicting our residents and businesses. Outmigration is high because Illinois' top Democratic leaders refuse to address the real issues that are hitting our residents hard. And instead of solving real problems, they're adding to them and stepping on individual rights and civil liberties along the way.”