Some counties in southwest Illinois track coronavirus recoveries. Why don’t all?
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The state of Illinois and counties across southwestern Illinois have been releasing public health information related to the COVID-19 pandemic such as the number of coronavirus tests given, positive cases recorded and the death toll.
But area residents have taken note of one question not being answered by St. Clair County or the Illinois Department of Public Health: How many recover from COVID-19?
“The definition of ‘recovered’ varies — in some cases, it is when the person is out of quarantine, in others, it is when they are a week past three days fever free,” Jan E. Nevois, director of administration for the St. Clair County Health Department, said in an email to the Belleville News-Democrat. “Due to the ambiguity involved in the definition, St. Clair County is not tracking this statistic.”
Seven counties — Madison, Clinton, Washington, Randolph, Bond, Jersey and Macoupin — recently started releasing the number of recovered COVID-19 patients in their jurisdictions. The Macoupin County Health Department listed the statistic in its daily report on Facebook on Thursday, a day after the BND asked whether the number was going to be reported.
Madison County began listing the number of recovered patients on Sunday, April 5, while Clinton County has been announcing the number of recovered patients since March 31.
Illinois surveys coronavirus patients
A spokeswoman for Gov. J.B. Pritzker couldn’t be reached to explain why the state has not released its number of recovered patients. In an email to the BND, a representative of the Illinois Department of Public Health said the department is collecting results of surveys sent to COVID-19 patients to see how many people recovered.
Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, has announced results of the survey at least twice this month during her daily news conferences with Pritzker.
On Tuesday, after she announced the number of people who had died in COVID-19-related cases, she said there was “some good news” to report: 43% of coronavirus-positive patients who were surveyed reported that they had recovered seven days after their diagnosis.
“We repeated our survey to identify individuals who have recovered post receiving a positive test,” she said. “We received approximately a 40% response rate, which is good as these electronic response rates go, and of all the people who responded who are seven days after their positive test result, 43% indicated that they have recovered.
“Given the large number of cases, we know that’s a significant number of people to have been in an improved status, just seven days after their positive test.”
On April 2, Ezike also discussed the surveys sent to COVID-19 patients and said, “We’ll continue to do those surveys and we’ll continue to report because we do need people to have that hope and know that it’s not a death sentence.”
On March 21 Ezike responded to a question about the number of patients who recover.
“I really think that a lot of the information we’re sharing is just the numbers are going up and up and really sad to announce deaths but I will include going forward more information about the numbers of people who are just recovering at their home or just self-isolating for a smaller amount of time. So I will have those numbers going forward but the vast majority of people do recover uneventfully, without being in an ICU, without being on a ventilator, and I do want to highlight those.”
National COVID-19 statistics
Johns Hopkins University posts an online chart that shows coronavirus pandemic data from around the world and it has started to list a number for COVID-19 patients who recover in the United States.
As of Friday, the Johns Hopkins chart showed more than 26,000 people nationwide who had tested positive for coronavirus have since recovered.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced this week it would start releasing a weekly tally of the number of people considered as recovered from COVID-19. MLive.com reported the state defined “recovered’ as patients with “a laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis who are still alive 30 days after the onset of illness.”
In Ohio, officials announced this week that the state health department would begin using a new data collection system to track the number of people who recovered from COVID-19 and that the statistic would be released soon, according to a report from News 5 in Cleveland.
Signs of recovery from virus
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has compiled the following tips for COVID-19 patients to determine when they have recovered and can stop home isolation:
“If you will not have a test to determine if you are still contagious, you can leave home after these three things have happened:
▪ You have had no fever for at least 72 hours (that is three full days of no fever without the use medicine that reduces fevers)
▪ Other symptoms have improved (for example, when your cough or shortness of breath have improved)
▪ At least 7 days have passed since your symptoms first appeared
If you will be tested to determine if you are still contagious, you can leave home after these three things have happened:
▪ You no longer have a fever (without the use medicine that reduces fevers)
▪ Other symptoms have improved (for example, when your cough or shortness of breath have improved)
▪ You received two negative tests in a row, 24 hours apart.”
This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 12:58 PM.
