Will County Gazette

Illinois state Rep. Margo McDermed (R-Mokena) is asking lawmakers to use all the ammunition at their disposal in the ongoing battle against the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think we have to be guided by what science is telling us, but at the same time we have to understand and always be mindful that this is a battle we’re fighting on more than just one front,” McDermed told the Will County Gazette. “I think we’re at the point right now where there needs to be a discussion about how to make it possible for social distance to exist where more of our businesses can open and return to business.”

McDermed said she didn’t have a problem with the letter Republican colleagues Brad Halbrook (Shelbyville) and Chris Miller (Oakland) recently fired off to Gov. J.B. Pritzker this month calling on him to immediately reopen the economy.

“It’s true that we need to be thinking of ways to be creative, while assuming that people will follow the rules, and get some places open,” she said. “We can’t just keep destroying our businesses at this record pace and not expect that it’s going to have lasting consequences.”

McDermed said dictums like Pritzker’s stay-at-home order that instantly shuttered countless businesses across the state now strike many as overkill given various new models tracking the virus have downsized what impact they expect it to end in.  

“We all need to be working together, adjusting, adapting and doing all we can to survive instead of just imposing these blanket orders that we then refuse to move off of,” she said. “We have to be willing to adjust when the data calls for it.”