67 deaths from coronavirus outbreaks at southwestern Illinois long-term care centers
At least 67 deaths during the coronavirus pandemic were related to outbreaks inside southwestern Illinois long-term care centers, according to state and local data.
And another 422 people who work or receive care at the facilities in St. Clair, Madison, Randolph, Clinton, Monroe and Macoupin counties have either tested positive for the COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus or they are showing symptoms.
The St. Clair County Health Department and the Illinois Department of Public Health released updates Friday on the number of people affected by the outbreaks.
Both agencies say they include residents and employees of the facilities in their data on outbreaks. Unlike other coronavirus data, the numbers out of long-term care facilities include both people who have tested positive and people who have COVID-19 like symptoms.
“In facilities where cases already exist, residents who display symptoms are to be treated as if positive, but staff are to be tested to determine who can care for residents and who should be isolated,” the Illinois Department of Public Health states on its website.
The St. Clair County Health Department provides daily updates on the coronavirus outbreaks and other developments in the county during 3:30 p.m. live streams by the St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency on Facebook.
Here is the information the health department provided Friday on the number of people known or suspected to have COVID-19, either because of a test result or their symptoms:
- Four Fountains in Belleville - 79 people, including 13 deaths (No change reported since Thursday)
- Memorial Care Center in Belleville - 43 people, including five deaths (No change reported since April 29)
- Lebanon Care Center - 34 people, including seven deaths (No change reported since Thursday)
BRIA of Belleville - 20 people (Two fewer deaths than what was reported Thursday)
- Caritas Family Solutions in Belleville - Six people (No change reported since Monday)
- St. Paul’s Home in Belleville - Five people, including one death (No change reported since Monday)
- BRIA of Cahokia - Five people (No change reported since Saturday)
- Help at Home in O’Fallon - Five people (No change reported since Monday)
- TDL, Inc. in Belleville - Four people (No change reported since Wednesday)
- Colonnade in O’Fallon - Three people (No change reported since Sunday)
The state updates its outbreak data once a week at dph.illinois.gov/covid19/long-term-care-facility-outbreaks-covid-19. The website included two new facilities in Clinton County on Friday: the Warren G Murray Developmental Center and Clinton Manor Living Facility.
This is the information from the state’s latest update on the number of people known or suspected to have COVID-19 at facilities elsewhere in the metro-east:
- Edwardsville Care Center - 91 people, including 17 deaths (One more person and two more deaths than what was reported May 1)
- Carlyle HealthCare Center - 67 people, including seven deaths (Four more people and three more deaths than what was reported May 1)
- Warren G Murray Developmental Center - 47 people
- Garden Place Columbia - 35 people, including 10 deaths (One more person than what was reported May 1)
- Eden Village Care Center in Glen Carbon - 31 people, including seven deaths (11 more people and six more deaths than what was reported May 1)
- Heritage Health in Macoupin County - Four people (Three fewer people than what was reported May 1)
- Clinton Manor Living Facility in Clinton County - Three people
- Oak Hill in Monroe County - Three people (No change reported since May 1)
- Cedarhurst of Sparta - Two people (No change reported since May 1)
- Coulterville Rehabilitation and Health Care Center - Two people (No change reported since May 1) Whitney Oberlink, administrator of the Coulterville Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, said Friday that the two people affected by COVID-19 there were both employees and that they have each recovered from the disease.
Lower numbers are expected to be released by the state than by local health departments because of the delay in reporting. But the Illinois Department of Public Health website included slightly higher numbers for some places than the St. Clair County Health Department released Friday.
The state recorded two more people who tested positive or had symptoms at BRIA of Belleville, two more people at BRIA of Cahokia and one more person at St. Paul’s Home than the St. Clair County Health Department did. The state was also reporting the two deaths at BRIA of Belleville that the health department omitted in its update Friday. A spokesperson for the health department could not immediately be reached for comment about the discrepancies Friday evening.
Because local health departments and individual facilities have previously said the state’s data was off, the Belleville News-Democrat did not include the higher numbers for St. Clair County in calculating the totals for the region.
When the state first released data on April 19, for example, it recorded 54 people tested positive or had symptoms at Memorial Care Center in Belleville, while the center itself said there were 13 people at the time.
