Prairie State Wire

Top staff to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker are making secret post-election plans to mandate every Illinois child take a COVID-19 vaccine or be barred from schools in the state.

That's according to internal emails released Saturday and published by the Wood House substack, which tracks Pritzker's executive orders on COVID-19.

The emails show Pritzker's office exploring whether he can make the COVID-19 vaccine required by Executive Order without holding public hearings, which his staff believe could be "rough."

Emails reveal Pritzker administration staff are secretly planning a statewide child vaccine mandate, to be implemented after the election. | IDPH

"From (Pritzker's office). Do we have to go through the Committee and have three hearings?" Illinois Department of Public Health Deputy Director Shannon Lightner asked colleagues on Thurs. Oct. 27.

"That seems to be the case," responds Heidi Clark, IDPH Division Chief of Infectious Diseases under Pritzker. "No statutory changes are necessary, which is a plus, but those meetings would be pretty rough, I'm sure."

Clark describes a process by which Pritzker's "Immunization Advisory Committee" (IAC) would first meet and recommend making the COVID-19 vaccine required. 

The group hasn't met since Dec. 2021, when the committee was run by Pritzker's top medical advisor, La Grange pediatrician Ngozi O. Ezike, but a meeting is being scheduled to take up Pritzker's child COVID-19 vaccine mandate after the election but "before the end of 2022," Clark wrote.

Then, Clark says, the Illinois State Board of Health would have "three public hearings geographically distributed throughout the state" before making its own recommendations.

President Joe Biden's U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Oct. 20 that it wanted a nationwide COVID-19 vaccine requirement for children. Since, several governors and gubernatorial candidates have announced they would block it, including Illinois Republican Darren Bailey.

On Oct. 27, the same day his office made the email inquiries about how to end-run any General Assembly involvement, Pritzker told reporters that all vaccine mandate decisions would, in fact, go "through the General Assembly."

"All of the vaccination requirements are heard by the General Assembly, decided upon by the General Assembly. So, it’s obviously something we’re listening to doctors about and making sure we’re making the right decisions," Pritzker said.