Chicago City Wire

Chicago Public Health Director Dr. Allison Arwady doesn't agree with the opinion that mandated masking is a form of quarantine. 

“This idea that somehow masking is a quarantine, we don’t agree with that at all,” Arwady said in a taped interview. 

Several judges have ruled in court opinions that mandated masking is not legal without a quarantine order. In Effingham County last year Attorney General candidate Tom DeVore won a hearing on behalf of school children versus the Teutopolis school district. 

“The court said quite clearly that a mask is a device that’s intended to limit the spread of a disease so it is a quarantine by definition and you cannot require anyone, students in this particular case, to wear that unless there’s consent of the parent or court order,” DeVore said, according to Center Square.

Arwady has suggested people mask indoors when welcoming guests. “If you have people in, please, masks are crucial,” Arwady said in October 2020. 

After masking was declared unconstitutional, Arwady expressed caution about removing masking requirements in school. “We don't want to move too soon,” Arwady said at a press conference held almost two years after the initial spread of COVID. “We always expect as we lift some mitigations that we'll see a little bit of a resurgence. One of the reasons why we don't want to move too soon is to make sure that at the time that we lift (the mandate), we can tolerate a little bit of an increase there.”

In one of her latest Tweets, Arwardy said she is "pleased that after lifting the mask and vaccine requirements in Chicago, the city remains in good control."