Chicago City Wire

Chicago Public Health Director Dr. Allison Arwady is being accused of not letting Chicago Public Schools parents know their rights when it comes to quarantines.

"We have the ability to do individual orders for isolation and quarantine, which we have a history of using when needed. We used it for tuberculosis, we used it at the beginning, etc.," Arwady said in response to a question about due process in quarantine orders. "I think when you are talking about a citywide, you know something at this scale, our very strong preference is not to have to use legal measures."  

An avid COVID researcher, using the alias Emma Woodhouse on Twitter, questioned Arwady’s comments.  

"Chicago DPH Commissioner tells citizen that the city only follows the law on quarantining healthy kids for covid exposure when it has to," she tweeted. "How many CPS parents know their rights under the IDPH Act? Why is the HD doing this to kids? It’s WRONG."  

Woodhouse added that CPS was quarantining kids.  

"Arwady also knows darn well that a judge gave Cook Co DPH a smackdown on this very issue CPS parents, get your act together - especially those of you with means & influence," Woodhouse said. "Hundreds of healthy kids, including minority and poor kids, are being illegally quarantined RIGHT NOW." 

In the same conversation, Arwady claimed masks are not a form of quarantine. "This idea that somehow masking is a quarantine, we don’t agree with that at all," Arwady said. 

Sharing Mayor Lori Lightfoot's tweet on the recent lifting of the mask mandate, Arwady said, "Since COVID arrived in Chicago, we've been guided by data when making decisions about steps to protect people and keep from overwhelming our health care system. Relaxing these mitigations doesn’t mean COVID is gone, it means transmission are lower than they've been during surges."

Mandatory masking is not permissible without a quarantine order, according to several judges in court judgments. Last year, attorney general candidate Tom DeVore won a hearing in favor of schoolchildren in Effingham County against the Teutopolis school district.