Coronavirus Illinois update: Willowbrook nursing home outbreak leaves 46 sick with COVID-19; 3 other facilities report cases
CHICAGO (WLS) -- At least four extended care facilities in the Chicago area have reported COVID-19 cases, including 46 cases inside a nursing home in west suburban Willowbrook.
Thirty three of the cases are residents of the Chateau Nursing Home and 13 are staff members, who health officials said are sheltering with their families.
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Other sick, but not seriously ill patients are also being isolated in a separate section of the facility.
Public health officials announced that the numbers have increased again, and they are still waiting on more test results to come back.
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"What we do know is, based on the epidemiological investigations that have occurred, that an average of individuals who come into contact with a case is around 90 individuals," said Karen Ayala, executive director of DuPage County Public Health.
Jessica Groetzenbach's 91-year-old grandmother is one of the still healthy residents at the west suburban facility.
"I was really freaked out," Groetzenbach said. "I tried to contact nursing home but because of quarantine reasons I wasn't able to talk to her at the time."
Groetzenbach said all that she knows is that her grandmother tested negative.
"I just know she is negative so she is quarantined with the people that do not have it," she said.
In Evanston, two residents have tested positive for COVID-19. The executive director at Three Crowns Park says they are now being treated at Evanston Hospital.
In the northwest suburbs, a staff member at the Church Creek Senior Living Center in Arlington Heights is also infected. That person is quarantined.
There is also one confirmed case of the coronavirus at the Admiral at the Lake facility in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood. The CEO there said they have ordered 20 more testing kits.
Nationwide, nursing homes have been locked down, forbidding visitors. It's part of an effort to avoid the nightmare scenario seen in Kirkland, Washington, where at least 19 people died as a result of COVID-19.
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Willowbrook's mayor issued a statement asking anyone that may have visited, or been inside the Chateau Nursing home over the past 30 days to isolate at home
The Illinois Department of Public Health has created a hotline at 1-800-889-3931. More information can be found at the IDPH website and the Chicago Department of Public Health website.
