Public Health
Sharing a meal, attending a funeral and celebrating a birthday. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, these otherwise innocuous activities can result in the spread of the highly contagious virus, according to a new report.
Blood tests for the coronavirus could play a key role in deciding whether millions of Americans can safely return to work and school. But public health officials warn that the current “Wild West” of unregulated tests is creating confusion.
New statewide totals: 19,180 cases, 677 deaths
Three weeks into a mandatory statewide order to stay at home, Illinois is offering two new programs to help people reeling from the coronavirus, whether physically fighting the disease or fighting off the mental demons it has unleashed.
New statewide totals: 17,887 cases, 596 deaths
Black residents in Illinois are five times more likely to die of COVID-19 than their white counterparts, according to state officials, who continue to see a “huge disparity” in the number of both COVID-19 cases and deaths based on race.
The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus hit 100,000 as Christians around the globe marked a Good Friday unlike any other and some countries tiptoed toward reopening segments of their battered economies.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Wednesday that the federal cupboard is officially bare at least through this month after it was able to fulfill just a sliver of states’ requests.
Leslie Pieroni, 51, was pronounced dead Thursday evening at St. Anthony’s Hospital. He had been hospitalized since April 3 after he tested positive for COVID-19.
Howard Brown Health’s clinic in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood provides a wide range of health care services with a special focus on LGBTQ communities. Like other health care providers, COVID-19 has forced it to make some changes.
Cook County is bracing for a surge in coronavirus-related deaths. We check in with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who is not sick but chose to self-isolate after a member of her security detail contracted the virus.
The Cook County sheriff must begin implementing additional sanitation and precaution measures at the jail, but a federal judge rejected calls for the release of large numbers of detainees.
New statewide totals: 16,422 cases, 528 deaths
Data may show the number of COVID-19 cases in Illinois is growing at a slower pace than some projections had forecast, but Gov. J.B. Pritzker said his stay-at-home order will remain in place through the end of the month.
The 1918 Spanish flu was not even close to being Chicago’s first bout with fast-spreading disease. Geoffrey Baer looks at how Chicago managed a tidal wave of diseases in its earliest years.
New York Times calls jail ‘the largest-known source of U.S. infections’
Data released by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office shows 251 detainees have so far tested positive for COVID-19, as have 150 Sheriff’s Office employees. On Sunday, the jail recorded its first virus-related death.
The West Ridge neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city, but a cluster of zip codes on the South Side are not far behind, according to newly released data.
While most Chicago residents are staying home to avoid contracting or spreading COVID-19, the city’s first responders are as busy as ever – and they’ve been hit hard.
New statewide totals: 15,078 cases, 462 deaths
More than 75,000 people in Illinois have so far been tested for COVID-19, according to state health officials, and more than 6,000 tests are being conducted each day. But Gov. J.B. Pritzker had hoped to test thousands more by now.
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