Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day parade and river dyeing has been postponed in the wake of COVID-19 in Illinois. Currently, there are 19 cases of coronavirus in the state.

St. Patrick’s Day brings thousands of people downtown every year, as it is tradition in the city to dye the river green for the holiday.

“The health and safety of Chicago’s residents will always be our highest priority and like many other cities across the nation and globe, we are post posing this years parade as a precautionary measure to prevent any additional spread of COVID-19,” Chicago Mayor Lightfood told reporters.

Snickersee.com has learned that this year though all is not lost for Chicago, when it comes to their tradition of dying the river. This year, Chicago will be adding ingredients to the water to turn the river into hand sanitizer.

“We want to make sure that everyone is safe in the city, and we know there is a run on hand sanitizer in Chicagoland,” A representative from the State Of Illinois Department Of Condescending Paternalism told Snickersee. “That is why Thursday morning we will have a crack team of scientists will be adding isopropyl alcohol, ethanol, and n-propanal into the river. Which will turn the downtown portion of the river into a free flowing river of hand sanitizer.”

The city is encouraging those without hand sanitizer in their homes to come down to the river, and fill a bottle with the concoction.

“We just want to remind people that this is an experiment, and that the city has no guarantees if we will be able to turn the river into sanitizer,” Representative told snickersee. “But, we are trying to maintain some level of normalcy during the St. Patrick’s Day Holiday in Chicago.”

Snickersee has also learned that scientists at Northwestern University in suburban Evanston think this is stupid.