107 deaths related to coronavirus outbreaks at southwestern Illinois care centers to date
The coronavirus has now spread through 27 southwestern Illinois residential care facilities and resulted in at least 107 deaths, according to state and local data.
The St. Clair County Health Department and the Illinois Department of Public Health each released updates Friday on the number of people affected by the outbreaks.
They are reporting 14 additional deaths across St. Clair, Madison, Randolph, Clinton, Monroe and Macoupin counties since last week, when the data was last updated at both the state and local level.
Deaths were reported in 10 of the 27 facilities and account for 68% of the coronavirus-related deaths in those counties.
Both state and local agencies say they include residents and employees of the facilities in their data on outbreaks.
The St. Clair County Health Department notes that the numbers it reports out of residential facilities includes both people who have tested positive and people who have symptoms related to the COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus. The Illinois Department of Public Health updated its website last week to say that its data includes “laboratory confirmed cases only.”
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. Four Fountains in Belleville reports only positive test results since it is offering widespread testing):
- 156-bed facility Four Fountains in Belleville — 104 people, including 20 deaths (No change reported since Thursday)
- 90-bed facility Lebanon Care Center — 51 people, including nine deaths (No change reported since May 15)
- 82-bed facility Memorial Care Center in Belleville — 43 people, including five deaths (No change reported since April 29)
- 140-bed facility BRIA of Belleville — 23 people, including two deaths (No change reported since May 10)
- 108-bed facility St. Paul’s Home in Belleville — 16 people, including four deaths (No change reported since Thursday)
- Caritas Family Solutions in Belleville region — 11 people (No change reported since Thursday)
- 133-bed facility BRIA of Cahokia — Eight people (No change reported since May 11)
- 53-bed facility New Athens Home for the Aged — Seven people (Three more people than what was reported Thursday)
- Knollwood Retirement Center in Caseyville — Seven people (No change reported since Thursday)
- 94-bed facility Swansea Rehab and Care Center — Six people (One more person than what was reported Thursday)
- Help at Home in O’Fallon — Five people (No change reported since May 4)
- Colonnade Senior Living in O’Fallon — Four people (No change reported since Wednesday)
- TDL Inc. in Belleville — Four people (No change reported since May 6)
The state’s updates on outbreaks come once a week at dph.illinois.gov/covid19/long-term-care-facility-outbreaks-covid-19. The website on Friday omitted three locations where it had previously reported outbreaks. This week, it is including only facilities where a coronavirus case has been reported in the past 28 days, which meets the state’s definition of an outbreak.
The Warren G Murray Developmental Center in Centralia, which reported 48 cases as of May 15, and Heritage Health in Macoupin County, which reported four, were no longer listed online Friday.
Garden Place Columbia also was left off the list, though Monroe County Health Department Administrator John Wagner said it reported a new case just this week. The total there is at 31 cases and 10 deaths.
This is the information from the state’s latest update on the number of people known to have COVID-19 at facilities elsewhere in the metro-east:
- 120-bed facility Edwardsville Care Center — 93 people, including 20 deaths (One more person and two more deaths than what was reported May 15)
- 109-bed facility Carlyle HealthCare Center — 82 people, including 15 deaths (Three more people and two more deaths than what was reported May 15)
- 128-bed facility Eden Village Care Center in Glen Carbon — 49 people, including 18 deaths (Eight more people and five more deaths than what was reported May 15)
- Clinton Manor Living Facility in Clinton County — 22 people (One more person than what was reported May 15)
- 137-bed facility Riverside Rehab and Healthcare in Alton — 21 people, including four deaths (Six more people and four more deaths than what was reported May 15)
- Cedarhurst of Bethalto — Three people (Newly reported)
- Cedarhurst of Highland — Three people (Newly reported)
- 144-bed facility Oak Hill in Waterloo — Three people (No change reported since May 1)
- Sunset Skilled Nursing & Rehab in Macoupin County — Two people (Newly reported)
- Cedarhurst of Sparta — Two people (No change reported since May 1)
- 75-bed facility Coulterville Rehabilitation & Health Care Center — Two people (No change reported since May 1) Whitney Oberlink, administrator of the Coulterville Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, said previously that the two people affected by COVID-19 there were both employees and that they have each recovered from the disease.
The state is expected to report lower numbers than local health departments, which have more up-to-date information. But for the third week in a row, the Illinois Department of Public Health website included slightly higher numbers than the St. Clair County Health Department released on Fridays.
Each week, there has been a discrepancy in the numbers out of BRIA of Cahokia. On Friday, the state was reporting six more cases and one more death than the St. Clair County Health Department. Local health officials have reported no change in BRIA of Cahokia’s numbers since May 11.
The Illinois Department of Public Health was also reporting one more death at St. Paul’s Home in Belleville than the health department.
The reason for the discrepancies was not immediately clear Friday.
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 BRIA of Cahokia and St. Paul’s Home in calculating the total deaths 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. And 54 is still a higher number than Memorial Care Center is reporting today.
The website medicare.gov records the number of beds for Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes.
This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 5:12 PM.
