St. Clair County announces fourth coronavirus case
Officials in St. Clair County have announced a fourth confirmed case of coronavirus.
The positive COVID-19 patient is a female, who contracted the virus through community spread.
In a live stream hosted by the county’s Emergency Management Agency, Barb Hohlt, the executive director of the health department, said the county is waiting on supplies from the federal government to allow more testing.
“The numbers here may be low at this time, but I suspect they will go up as more testing goes up,” she said.
According to the emergency management agency, 68 people have been tested, four have been positive for COVID-19 and there are 23 pending cases, including from the state lab and from the drive-thru testing site in Swansea.
The three other cases in St. Clair County include: two women, one is in her 60s and the other in her 70s, who had traveled overseas and were recovering at home, and a man in his 50s.
“This is a new norm for us,” Hohlt said of social distancing and the governor’s shelter-in-place order. “It’s tough, but in the good of public health, we all need to do this.”
Illinois and metro-east health department directors have refused to release additional information about the victims, such as the towns in which they live.
Hohlt has said further information about the patients cannot be released because such a disclosure would violate federal privacy rules under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.
On Sunday, the health department announced it would suspend its walk-in services due to spread of the virus.
This story was originally published March 23, 2020 at 3:39 PM.
.jpg)