Indiana Moved Up On Chicago's Travel Advisory List

CHICAGO — Indiana has been bumped up a tier on Chicago's COVID-19 restricted travel list. Unvaccinated people traveling from Indiana to Chicago will have to quarantine for ten days or test negative for coronavirus three days before entering beginning this Friday.

Indiana has been on the city's travel list before, but now will move up from the "yellow" tier to the "orange" tier due to surging COVID-19 cases in the state, according to a statement from the Chicago Department of Public Health.

There are 18 other orange states as well as Puerto Rico where travelers must meet emergency travel guidelines before returning to Chicago. If a traveler received their final vaccine dose two weeks prior, that person will be exempt from the travel restrictions.

The travel order update also announced eight states and Washington, D.C., have been moved down to the yellow tier, meaning they're safer to travel to and from. These states include vacation favorites for Chicagoans such as South Carolina, South Dakota and Connecticut.

The orange tier only includes states where the seven-day average is about 15 cases per 100,000 residents. Yellow tiered states have managed to stay below that threshold.

Many airports are offering rapid COVID-19 tests to arriving travelers, but those people will have to stay separate from others while they wait for a negative result.

Orange tier states/areas:

• Colorado
• Delaware
• Florida
• Indiana
• Maine
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New York
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Washington
• West Virginia
• Puerto Rico

New yellow tier states/areas:

• Washington, D.C
• Alaska
• Connecticut
• Nebraska
• Ohio
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Vermont
• Virginia

The city reexamines the travel order every two weeks and puts new regulations into effect Friday at midnight. Essential workers traveling for work, people traveling for medical or caretaking reasons and people passing through an orange state for less than 24 hours are exempt, in addition to fully vaccinated people.