How is Illinois preventing coronavirus outbreaks at residential facilities for elderly?
The Illinois Department of Public Health director said Thursday that the state wants to use COVID-19 testing to prevent future coronavirus outbreaks at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
It was the same day Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced that the state’s testing capacity was increasing significantly.
Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said staff members at the long-term facilities are probably the ones bringing the virus in when they go to work, because visitations are not allowed during the pandemic. So the state is trying to test all of those employees to identify carriers of the virus, according to Ezike.
“We think that if we can identify staff members who are positive — maybe they don’t know they’re positive — then we can get ahead of them potentially infecting the people that they’re charged to work with,” she said.
Elderly and sick people are among the most vulnerable to the COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
An outbreak at the assisted living facility Garden Place Columbia has resulted in four residents’ deaths. As of Thursday, eight residents from Garden Place were hospitalized, according to Monroe County Health Department Administrator John Wagner.
The outbreak there grew from three COVID-19 patients to 26 in a week.
