Prairie State Wire

The Chairman of Chicago's Republican Party isn't happy with Mayor Lori Lightfoot's (D) latest mandate that forces businesses to have customers prove they've been vaccinated before entering. 

Lightfoot announced the mandate right before Christmas. It requires patrons to provide businesses with proof they've been vaccinated in order to enter any place where food or drinks are served, fitness centers, and entertainment or recreational venues starting Jan. 3, 2022.

"To put it simply, if you have been living vaccine-free, your time is up. If you wish to live life as w/the ease to do things you love, you must be vax'd," Lightfoot wrote in a Dec. 21 tweet. "This health order may pose an inconvenience to the unvaccinated, and in fact it is inconvenient by design."

But even the CDC has said those who've received the COVID-19 vaccination in full can still contract and spread the virus, not just those who are unvaccinated, according to Deseret News.

"This mayor thinks she has greater knowledge than the CDC and greater authority than the law," Chris Cleveland, Chicago's GOP chairman, told Prairie State Wire. 

Lightfoot said the mandate would remain in effect until the city thought the virus' threat to the public had been "diminished significantly."

"It's pure authoritarian virtue-signaling," Cleveland said. 

Five months ago, New York City implemented a similar vaccine passport requirement, NY1 reported. 

Even so, the city wasn't spared from seeing a surge in cases and averaged more than ten times the amount of positive COVID-19 cases than prior to implementing vaccine requirements. 

The state's pandemic-related mandates may be at least partly to blame for the record number of people who moved out of Illinois last year. According to Wirepoints, 114,00 people left the Prairie State, which is about the same amount of people who live in the City of Peoria.