By Blake Haas

BLOOMINGTON – As the state is set to lift the mask mandate at the end of the month, a central Illinois Congressman said the move was needed a long time ago.

On Wednesday, Gov. Pritzker said the state’s mask mandate would be lifted on Feb. 28 except for schools and public transportation.

Congressman Rodney Davis (R-Taylorville) said with a high survivability rate of those infected with COVID-19, the lifting of the mandate is much needed.

“We’ve seen the efficiency of individuals who have gotten the vaccine, like me, being able to avoid hospitalization. These are the times where we have to look at the data and the science that we have accrued over the last two years.

And we need to balance it with some of the problems that the COVID mitigations that have been in place for two years are causing our kids, our workers, our citizens.”

The Taylorville Republican said now Americans need to learn to live to Covid as a “risk management issue.”

“It will never be a zero-tolerance issue,” Davis told WJBC’s Scott Miller. “And now you see the science and the data, the statistics coming out on how the CDC (Centers for Disease and Control) may recalculate some of the hospitalization numbers and other COVID-related numbers that should have been done a couple of years ago as we’ve learned more and more about this disease and how to live with it.”

The state is now seeing the fastest rate of decline of COVID-19 hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.

Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].