Kane County leaders applaud move to drop indoor mask mandate later this month

Gov. JB Pritzker’s announcement on Wednesday that he will drop the indoor mask mandate on Feb. 28 is being greeted warmly in the Geneva business community.

“I’ve heard positive things from people and they were hoping this would happen,” Geneva Chamber of Commerce President Paula Schmidt. “It will make a lot of people very happy and a lot of the restaurants and businesses I think will be very happy to not have to worry about that anymore. People might be a little leery of going into places with a lot of people without masks. That’s me personally though and I can’t say that’s the business community.”

She said lifting the mask mandate “shows a positive step as far as moving back to somewhat normal circumstances.”

In reacting to the news, Kevin Stahr, communications coordinator for the city of Geneva said the city will “continue to follow the COVID-19 guidance established by the State of Illinois.”

Elburn Village President Jeff Walter said since there is no law that can be enforced regarding masks, “we have left it up to individuals and businesses to do what they think is right for themselves, their families and their businesses based on the ever changing CDC guidelines.”

“Some in Elburn have chosen to abide by the mandate and some have not,” Walter said. “So the overall impact to Elburn will, I hope, be that those that have implemented mask policies will remove them. In recent months, I have noticed that even those that did require masks were not strictly enforcing it with their employees or their customers so I imagine that their signs will come down and only those who are at risk and feel they need to protect themselves will be wearing masks. It is unfortunate that the governor did not include schools in his announcement.”