Lake County Gazette

Illinois House candidate Chris Bos views Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s five-phase plan for fully reopening the state’s economy as a mixed-bag proposition.

“I’m glad the governor finally put forward something, although there’s a lot of concern about some of what he’s proposing,” Bos, who is running against incumbent Rep. Mary Edly-Allen (D-Libertyville) in the 51st District, told the Lake County Gazette. “There are a lot of things that don’t make sense if we’re talking about them through the metrics of the data that has been made publicly available.”

Pritzker’s plan calls for a region-by-region reopening of the economy that weighs the fact that some regions of the state are bound to be in a position to move to the next phase faster than others. With the state in Phase 2 of the plan, Pritzker said he doesn’t anticipate moving into Phase 5, or a complete reopening of the economy, until there is a vaccine or highly effective COVID-19 treatment available.

That’s where Bos, a Lake Zurich resident, takes exception.

“I think the regions he’s talking about are way too big and the 28-day timeline he’s looking at for reevaluating things is way too long,” he said. “Sometime I wonder what the governor’s ulterior motives might be. We’ve already gone far beyond what his shutdown plan was originally said to be looking to accomplish, which was flattening the curve.  We’ve done that, so why are we still pushing things in the same way?”

Bos said he worries about what the state may look like if Pritzker completely gets his way.

“We’ve got a growing number of businesses now that aren’t sure if they’ll be able to come back after the shut down,” he said. “The lie is if we don’t stay in quarantine, more people are going to die. Well, we’re not taking into account the fact suicide and domestic abuse calls are going through the roof from people worried about the future. It shouldn’t be a case of either or. I believe we can protect the vulnerable and open up our economy.”