Two women from St. Clair County have tested positive for coronavirus
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Two St. Clair County women have tested positive for the coronavirus, the Illinois Department of Public Health announced Saturday, and County Board Chairman Mark Kern said he has signed an emergency declaration for the county.
One woman is in her 60s and the other is in her 70s, but other details about their medical condition were not released.
These two are the first positive COVID-19, or coronavirus disease 2019, cases reported in the metro-east.
“Possible exposures and travel histories for the two individuals are still being investigated and public health officials are working to identify and contact all individuals who are close contacts for these two cases,” the state health department said in a news release.
Barb Hohlt, executive director of the St. Clair County Health Department, said the two women had traveled to Europe and Asia but she declined to release details about the women because she did not want to violate federal HIPAA, or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, privacy rules.
Hohlt would not say whether the women had traveled together and she did not know the specific countries they visited. She said they had returned home about a week ago. They are not hospitalized and are being quarantined in their homes, Hohlt said during a news conference Saturday at the county health department in downtown Belleville.
“They had light symptoms. They were taken care of at home,” Hohlt said.
Although the women are not hospitalized now, they had been tested in local hospitals.
Hohlt said since December several people have been tested for coronavirus in St. Clair County but none have been identified as “presumptive positive” until the two announced Saturday by the state.
“I would suspect these are probably not the last,” she said.
Kern urged everyone to practice good personal hygiene by washing their hands and staying home if you are sick.
“You could be a carrier so do the right thing for your friends, for your family and for your community,” Kern said during the news conference.
“Short-term sacrifice will keep our medical infrastructure from dealing with too many cases at one time,” Kern said. “Your sacrifice will undoubtedly help save lives.”
Herb Simmons, director of the St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency, said the emergency declaration signed by Kern means the county would have help from the state for supplies such as hand sanitizer.
Kern said the declaration paves the way for the county to get assistance from state and federal agencies.
Coronavirus cases increase
Statewide, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Illinois rose to 64 on Saturday.
“As we expected, we are beginning to identify cases of COVID-19 outside of the Chicago area,” said Gov. J.B. Pritzker in the news release. “Over the past several days, we have announced aggressive measures to reduce and slow the spread of the virus in Illinois. These are not easy decisions to make and we are not taking them lightly, but we believe these actions will help limit the spread of the virus in our communities and keep our residents safe.”
On Friday, Pritzker closed all public and private schools statewide from Tuesday until March 30 in an effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
The first confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported in the Chicago area but on Saturday the state announced that cases have been recorded in central and southern Illinois.
Along with the two St. Clair County cases, there is one case in Woodford County near Peoria and one in Cumberland County, which is northeast of Effingham.
“We are starting to receive results from commercial laboratory testing,” said Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike in the news release. “With these additional results, we expect the number of identified cases to increase dramatically all across the state. It is vitally important that we implement social distancing measures, such as staying home and cancelling large events. These are actions that can reduce the number of infections that occur in the community, and ultimately alleviate the strain on our health care systems.”
If you have questions about coronavirus, you can call the state’s hotline at 800-889-3931 for more information.
This story was originally published March 14, 2020 at 3:32 PM.
