First daughter Teddi Pritzker spent the holidays in the Bahamas. She didn't wear a mask | Teddi Pritzker/social media
First daughter Teddi Pritzker spent the holidays in the Bahamas. She didn't wear a mask | Teddi Pritzker/social media
While Gov. J.B. Pritzker was urging Illinois residents to cancel their New Year’s Eve plans, his daughter Theodora “Teddi” Pritzker rang in 2022 with style New Year’s Eve in a nightclub environment without a mask in the Bahamas.
The eldest child of billionaire Gov. J.B. Pritzker posted photos of herself in a bar-hopping dress, holding arms alongside her friends flaunting her luxurious lifestyle in a New Year’s Eve celebration untouched by the Covid-19 protocols imposed by her father.
"Omicron and delta are coming to your party so you need to think twice about how many people will be gathered together, keeping social distancing if you’re at a party. And if you cannot, leave,” Pritzker said a press conference prior to the New Year’s holiday. “
Teddi — who spent New Year’s Eve partying with a fellow equestrian rider with whom she was spotted bar hopping in Miami earlier in the year — ignored her father's advice.
The Bahamas has tourist-friendly rules when it comes to Covid-19, allowing free and unimpeded travel for both vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans. Meanwhile, Illinois residents over the age of five are being carded to show their vaccination status at a variety of public places, including restaurants, gyms and bars.
A Winnetka Starbucks has taken to posting a proof of vaccination warning to guests using the coffee chain’s dining room.
As Gov. Pritzker has been one of the most lockdown-heavy governors in the nation, Teddi and her mother have spent the majority of the lockdown in Florida — where most Covid protocols were suspended in mid 2020 — at the family’s $12 million horse estate in Wellington.
At one point, Pritzker blamed Chicago City Wire for his family’s extended stay in Florida which Teddi herself has chronicled on social media.
Gov. Pritzker has mandated masks in public indefinitely, canceled high school sports seasons and forced high school basketball players to wear masks during games. That's while Teddi has actively participated in the competitive horse jumping circuit, mask-free.
The Pritzker administration created loopholes for Teddi to skirt his sports bans such as when she competed at an equestrian event in Illinois, as other similar events were disallowed or cancelled in the state.
Last summer, Teddi posted photos of herself maskless from Lollapalooza in which over 100,000 largely maskless fans packed in the summer of 2021.
Pritzker himself has taken to shrugging off his own orders where it suits him. He and the state’s legislative leaders were panned for posting a photo of themselves toasting at an English pub without masks.
Multiple academic studies have found little evidence to support mask effectiveness.
A University of Illinois at Chicago study found that “cloth masks and face coverings are likely to have limited impact on lowering COVID-19 transmission, because they have minimal ability to prevent the emission of small particles.. and offer limited personal protection with respect to small particle inhalation.”
Still, Pritzker has suggested the state’s mask mandate will continue indefinitely.
Illinois is one of the few states still requiring masking in 2022. Others are Washington, Oregon, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada and Hawaii. California and New York recently re-instituted masking.
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