West Cook News

Village of Oak Park Health Department Director Theresa Chapple-McGruder is throwing her support behind Philadelphia's masking rules that have reinstituted the practice abandoned in other parts of the country long ago.

"I like Philly's metric of a 50% increase in COVID rates over a 7 day period as an indicator of putting masks back on," Chapple tweeted.

Chapple also objected to those responding to her via Twitter, attempting to calculate what would trigger masing.

"3 people attempted to do the math. 3 people got it wrong on their 1st try," Chapple said. "This is what worries me about personal risk assessment. Calculating a 50% increase is simple math. Risk assessment with ever changing variables and missing data is just a set up for mass confusion."

A math teacher responded to her posts.

"I teach math," Brin Orak tweeted in response. "Would you rather him go from 2 to 3? That's a 50% increase. You can't have half a person. And 1 to 2 satisfied the original claim of >50%. Maybe you're the one who isn't doing math properly?" 

In January, Chapple advocated for schools to be closed again while others were protesting across the state to remove the masking and other Covid restrictions. At the time, Chapple-McGruder said Oak Park would not follow the U.S. Centers for Disease Controls' revised "isolation/quarantine" guidelines, West Cook News previously reported. That appears to still be the case, given Philadelphia's metric is its own. 

Chapple has been a polarizing figure throughout the pandemic in Oak Park, West Cook News reported. It was her decision to cancel all extracurricular events at Oak Park and River Forest High Schools last fall. School parents reprobated the director's decision, saying it was not based on science or logic. 

She was rumored to be under investigation for improperly revealing details about children she claimed to have vaccinated, West Cook News Reported. She did not respond to inquiries regarding that investigation.

At her discretion — after the village board increased her emergency regulatory power — Chapple has the right to decide whether schools or companies within the Oak Park village boundaries can remain open or must close, West Cook News reported.