The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) added five statesAlabama, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii and Texasas well as Puerto Rico to its weekly COVID-19 travel advisory on Dec. 21.
The advisory is now at 47 states and two territories.
All states and territories except for Guam, Louisiana, South Carolina and the Virgin Islands are on the travel advisory. Maryland has not reported complete COVID case data to the CDC for at least two weeks, and remains on the advisory.
The only state eligible to come off the advisory next week is Montana, which has reported a daily COVID case rate of 14 per 100,000 residents. Daily COVID case rates must be below 15 per 100,000 residents for two consecutive weeks for a state to be removed from the advisory.
The U.S. average daily case rate per 100,000 residents is 40 (35.2 last week and 31.3 two weeks ago). Illinois' daily case rate currently is 66.9 (56.0 last week and 39.2 two weeks ago), and Chicago's daily case rate is 42.5 (33.8 last week and 23.2 two weeks ago). All figures reflect a surge in COVID-related cases, this time regarding the Omicron variant.