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COOK COUNTY RECORD

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Cook County courts mask mandate to remain in place, potentially through winter

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Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans

For all of 2022, even when courthouses and virtually all other non-healthcare settings throughout the rest of Illinois dropped their mask mandates, Cook County courthouses have continued to require everyone entering to wear a mask, unless specifically directed otherwise by a judge.

And according to a memo issued Sept. 16, Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans has told employees of the Cook County Circuit Court that the order will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

In the memo, obtained by The Cook County Record, Judge Evans advised the Circuit Court’s judges and employees that the circuit court intends to continue following the guidance of the Cook County Department of Public Health to mandate everyone, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks while indoors at the county’s courthouses in Chicago and the suburbs.

He said the guidance specifically came from Rachel Rubin, the CCDPH’s senior medical officer.

“Dr. Rubin continues to recommend masking in all court facilities,” Evans wrote in the recent memo.

The memo does not indicate precisely when or if the masking order might be relaxed or lifted. However, Judge Evans said Rubin “indicates that relaxing the policy might be warranted following and (sic) anticipated surge in COVID infections over the winter.”

Cook County’s courts continue to stand alone in the region in requiring everyone who enters courthouses to wear masks, and has done so since early 2022.

In late February 2022, the Illinois Supreme Court issued an order, removing indoor mask mandates for that court and state appellate courts. However, the state’s high court allowed any of the state’s 24 circuit courts to issue their own rules pertaining to masking.

Immediately after the Supreme Court changed its standing order, however, chief judges in circuit courts throughout the rest of the state moved to rescind and rewrite their masking orders, to align with the new requirements from the state high court.

Masks, for instance, have been “permitted, but not required” for everyone visiting and working in courthouses in all of the counties surrounding Cook, including the collar counties of Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane and Will counties, since March 2022.

Other large circuit court systems in Illinois, including Sangamon County in Springfield, have also rescinded any mask mandates.

Federal courts are not subject to the orders issued by the Illinois Supreme Court.

But the judges over the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois changed its rules pertaining to masking in August, ending a mask mandate for most people using the courthouse that had been in place since 2021.

Under that court’s new orders, employees and visitors to the federal district’s courthouses in Chicago and Rockford are now “encouraged, but not required, to wear a face covering.” The mask mandate, however, would still apply to jurors and anyone “participating in a jury trial.” Witnesses testifying and attorneys questioning witnesses are also excused from the mask mandate.

The order would also still allow judges to order masks be worn in their courtrooms.

Since the Illinois Supreme Court’s order, however, Judge Evans has steadfastly refused to relax the mask requirements in any way. Since March, Evans has said his court will allow the recommendation of the CCDPH to determine whether or not to lift the court’s mask requirements.

At the time, Judge Evans said the CCDPH had advised the court to keep the mask mandate in place until “community transmission rates” of Covid “reach moderate or low” levels.

He said the courts would only revisit the decision if public health officials drop their recommendation that people continue to wear masks in public indoor settings, or if “local transmission rates reach safer levels.”

Since then, the Illinois Department of Public Health has at times moved Cook County’s Covid risk level between low and high several times.

As of Sept. 22, the IDPH has reported the Cook County Covid transmission risk level as “medium.”

In each of the past two winters of 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, the state has recorded significant Covid activity surges, first from the so-called Delta variant and then from the so-called Omicron variant.

The Biden administration is forecasting another spike in Covid activity this fall and winter, as the weather cools and people congregate more indoors.

However, the appetite among Americans for further continued restrictions, including indoor mask mandates, seems to be wearing thin and mask usage continues to drop, as mandates fall.

A federal judge, for instance, recently issued a permanent injunction covering 24 states barring the Biden administration from continuing to mandate preschool children wear masks under the Head Start program.

The order also blocked the Biden administration from forcing workers and volunteers at Head Start facilities to receive the Covid vaccine.

Among Illinois’ neighbors, the order would apply to preschools and other Head Start facilities in Indiana, Missouri, Iowa and Kentucky, but not Illinois. Those four states joined the action challenging the Biden mask and vaccine mandate.

A spokesperson for the Cook County Chief Judge’s office did not reply to questions about the continued mask mandate, including whether there has been any discussion among the Cook County’s circuit judges concerning lifting the mandate.

Evans was recently reelected to serve another three years as the chief judge of the Cook County courts, the state’s largest circuit court. According to a release from the chief judge’s office, Evans received 184 votes from 219 voting judges.

More than 400 judges serve on the Cook County bench.

Evans has served as Cook County’s chief judge since 2001 and has been reelected seven times. He has been a Cook County judge since 1992. Before that, Evans served as a Chicago city alderman for 18 years.

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