By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – Surrounding states are ahead of Illinois in lifting coronavirus restrictions. And Gov. JB Pritzker Friday took a question about Iowa.

“I am genuinely concerned,” Pritzker said, “that with no stay-at-home order in place in Iowa, that people who are traveling across the border and gathering in large groups and going into restaurants or bars or getting into close contact with others will, asymptomatically, come back to Illinois and spread it.”

Yet just this week, members of Pritzker’s family were in Wisconsin, perhaps the most wide-open state in the Union. He says they were at a family farm.

“That is an essential function, to take care of animals at a farm, and so that’s what they’re doing,” the governor said, “and i would hope that the GOP, the Republican super PAC that’s pushing stories like this about my family, would stop doing it, because they are putting my children and my family in danger.”

The governor also praised the state’s declining positivity rate and rising test numbers. Public health director Dr. Ngozi Ezike stressed the importance of coronavirus tests for women going into labor.

As for the numbers, Illinois reports 4,058 coronavirus deaths among 90,369 cases.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]