Today, Governor Pritzker extended the State’s COVID-19 Disaster Declaration over all counties in Illinois for another 30 days. The Governor also issued EO 2022-07 extending a number of previously issued Executive Orders through April 2, 2022, including the EOs relating to cannabis licenses, Phase 5 reopening plan, EO 2022-06 which relaxed the mask mandate in most places, EO 2021-22 imposing vaccination and testing requirements for certain health care workers (as amended by EO 2021-23, 2021-27, and EO 2022-05) and EO 2021-28 imposing vaccination and testing requirements for day cares, among many others. The new EO 2022-07 also modifies certain mitigation measures at schools. Readers interested in learning how a particular extended EO has been modified should read through EO 2022-07 (which should be posted on the State of Illinois website here shortly).

As we noted earlier this week, the issuance of a state-wide disaster declaration relating to COVID-19 means that public bodies can conduct remote meetings under section 7(e) of the Open Meetings Act subject to the rules and regulations contained in that statute, including the head of the public body making a local determination that it is not practical or prudent to meet in person.