Carbondale Reporter

State Sen. Paul Schimpf (R-Waterloo) is asking Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to allow local health officials to make the call for when nonessential businesses can reopen. 

Schimpf and seven other Republican senators sent a letter to the governor asking for a plan to reopen Illinois, according to the Southern Illinoisan. In the letter, the senators said COVID-19 is impacting different areas of the state differently, which means some counties could be ready to open while others are not. 

He asked the governor to let local health officials decide when and how to reopen businesses, according to the Southern Illinoisan, but Pritzker said he wasn't supportive of this idea. 

“I am just as eager as all of those state senators, the President of the United States and everybody else to get everybody back to work,” he said during a televised news conference. “But we’ve got to do it in a fashion that really works for everybody, so that we keep customers safe, that we keep workers safe.”

Pritzker's plan announced May 5 splits the state up into four regions and allows each to open a different phase at an independent pace, though the fifth and final phase requires a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 to be developed. Experts say that could take months, if not years. 

As of May 18, Illinois reported 94,191 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, including 4,177 deaths. Schimpf's home of Monroe County has reported just 87 cases of COVID-19.