we ve seen it here in the chicago area, much like places across the country, a rise in cases. now, to give you context, last month, the positivity rate here in chicago was 0.4%. two weeks ago, it was 1%. now, it s a little over 3%. while that doesn t seem high, it s not the direction officials want to see things headed. significantly, we re now over 200 cases a day. the reason that is significant is because that s the threshold mayor lori lightfoot here said she would start to consider reinstating mask mandates. a little bit of deja vu because these decision points were something many of us thought we were past as vaccines spread across the country. nevertheless, we are here. lollapalooza is expected to go ahead at full capacity as it has the past few days. by the end of this four-day stretch, they hope they re remembered for the music and not as a superspreader event. jessica? omar jimenez in chicago, thank you for the update.
among public health experts about vaccine mandates in the future, if and when the vaccines, which are safe and effective, receive full fda approval. as andy slavet told nbc news, quote, i think once the vaccines go through full fda approval, everything should be on the table and i think everything will be on the table. while governments and businesses requiring vaccines could be a possibility down the line, requiring masks again seems like a much closer reality, which means we could see more states and cities following l.a. county s lead in reinstating mask mandates. we have gabe gutierrez in louisiana, ron allen in new jersey, and dr. aimish. you re in louisiana, which has a
special teams to hot spots around the united states to combat the highly contagious delta variant in parts of the country where vaccination rates remain low which seems like a good idea. if you re going to pick a county, low levels of vaccination where you re seeing rising case counts, my guess is just blindly taking a guess, those places are going to tend to be the most resistant both at a political and institutional level to say reinstating mask mandates and social distancing and saying you can t have your wedding this july, we thought you could. so you re dealing in some ways with like the same core problem of the resistance either on the vaccination side or on the kind of public health measure side. yeah, i think that s right. i think it s an unfortunate consequence of the erosion of trust that we ve had over the last year and a half. and sadly, once that genie is out of the bottle, it s very hard to put it back in.
delta variant in parts of the country where vaccination rates remain low which seems like a good idea. if you re going to pick a county, low levels of vaccination where you re seeing rising case counts, my guess is just blindly taking a guess, those places are going to tend to be the most resistant both at a political and institutional level to say reinstating mask mandates and social distancing and saying you can t have your wedding this july, we thought you could. so you ve dealing in some ways with like the same core problem of the resistance either on the vaccination side or on the kind of public health measure side. yeah, i think that s right. i think it s an unfortunate consequence of the erosion of trust that we ve had over the last year and a half. and sadly, once that genie is out of the bottle, it s very hard to put it back in. and yet we do have to try.