State Representative Joe Sosnowski, R-Rockford, issued the following statement in response to today’s announcement by Governor JB Pritzker issuing a new indoor mask mandate and requiring all school employees to get vaccinated:
“The Governor’s actions today ignore the science and the facts. According to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health less than 9% of hospitalized patients in Illinois are from COVID-related illness. When it comes to our youth, according to the Centers for Disease Control, COVID accounts for 0.2 deaths per 100,000 among children ages 1-14 in the United States. That’s statistically as close to zero as you can get. The same CDC data shows that COVID ranks behind drowning, vehicle accidents, homicide, cancer, cardiovascular disease, flu/pneumonia and suffocation as the leading causes of death among children ages 1-4; and among children ages 5-14, COVID comes in slightly above zero and as equal a danger as suffocation. The point is, children are NOT at high or even moderate risk of hospitalization or death from COVID. Based on the science and the facts, mask mandates on students and vaccination mandates on educators are unnecessary.”
“The Governor is not a dictator, yet he continues to act like one, and his allies in the General Assembly are too timid to speak out as the people’s elected representatives to demand that we restore checks and balances to the state’s ongoing response to COVID.”
“The virus is one of many public health issues we face. It is NOT the only part of public health. We need to look at life holistically and not single out COVID as the greatest threat to our health. Vaccination should be an individual’s personal choice. Parents should get to decide whether they want their child to wear mask in school, not the Governor.”
Representative Sosnowski serves the 69th District, which includes portions of Winnebago and Boone Counties.