Chicago City Wire

The city of Chicago is taking measures to mitigate an increase in COVID-19 cases while also preparing to welcome thousands of visitors for its annual Lollapalooza music festival.

The city recently added Florida, Louisiana and Nevada and the U.S. Virgin Islands to its travel advisory list, according to ABC 7 News. These regions join Missouri and Arkansas which were already on the list.

These areas report 15 cases per day per 100,000 residents and unvaccinated travelers from these regions are advised, but not required, to present a negative COVID-19 test at least 72 hours before arriving in Chicago, or to quarantine for 10 days upon arrival in the city.

"Knowing what we know about this virus and the delta variant, we wanted to sound the alarm today," Lightfoot said, ABC 7 News reported. "It's still real, it's still deadly and it's attacking people who are not vaccinated."

The delta variant of the the COVID virus has been shown to be more contagious and is causing a sharp increase in coronavirus cases across the nation.

Unvaccinated people are especially susceptible to the variant, with Lightfoot reporting that more than 90% of people hospitalized and 95% of COVID deaths are from the unvaccinated population.