An Illinois veterans’ home where 36 veterans died from the pandemic is experiencing another outbreak of COVID-19, state officials said Monday.
The Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs said 23 workers and 42 citizens tested positive for COVID-19 at the Illinois Veterans Home in LaSalle, and all those who tested positive were transferred to a negative stress isolation unit where they are heavily monitored.
The veterans home a few miles southwest of Chicago is the same facility where 36 veterans died of COVID-19 between November 2020 and January 2021.
The branch said all existing cases are “mild” and that staff and citizens are experiencing bloodless symptoms. No one required hospitalization. Residents are being vaccinated and COVID-19 drug treatments are being administered, the branch said.
A team went to the home to provide recommendations and help, adding a senior infection specialist, the state physician for the Illinois Department of Public Health and Terry Prince, director of the state Department of Veterans Affairs, officials said.
The most recent cases come after state officials were fired for handling a home outbreak in 2020 and 2021, the largest of any collective care facility in the state.
A report released through Illinois Auditor General Frank Mautino in May concluded that the red flags were well documented, as two resident cases of COVID-19 on November 1, 2020, temporarily increased to 82 positive resident cases and nine resident deaths on November 12, 2020. .
The Mautino report found it took 11 days for a layover at the Illinois Department of Public Health site that reportedly indicated problems, added inadequate masks, alcohol-free hand sanitizer and “staff complacency. “
Gov. J. B. Pritzker evicted two seniors from the home in December 2020 and added the home’s nursing director.
At the time, the governor told reporters, “It’s never been this bad. “The governor later blamed the state’s former head of veterans affairs, Linda Chapa LaVia, for her department’s handling of the crisis. LaVia resigned in the face of a scathing report from the inspector general of the Illinois Department of Human Services and was released.
The governor’s office said Monday that procedures were different at the height of the pandemic, when infection protocols included checking in by phone and sending more employees home discouraged as part of efforts to prevent the spread of the virus. The peak of the outbreak at the veterans’ home also occurred before vaccines were released, the governor’s office said.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey cited the deaths of COVID-19 veterans in a televised debate last week and used it as an example of what he called Pritzker’s “incompetent and arrogant leadership,” as well as the deaths of young people in State Department custody. of Children and Family Services and the lives lost to violence on the streets of Chicago.
“Thirty-six of our clients at our veterans home in LaSalle. Your fault,” Bailey said. Nine young people in DCFS. Es your fault. More than six hundred dead in Chicago, your fault. It is time for a change.
Bailey’s crusade responded to a request for comment on the latest outbreak.