CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Police and fire dispatchers in the northwest suburbs plan to go to court Friday to try to get the Cook County Department of Health to release coronavirus patient information.
The Northwest Central Dispatch System said dispatchers should have access to information about whether people are COVID-19 positive, so that police, firefighters, or paramedics responding to calls know that going in. Dispatchers planned to enter the information into their computer-aided dispatch system as "premise warnings" when sending police or fire responders to an address, but vowed to remove the information after an agreed amount of time.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle turned down the request, saying she will abide by the guidelines of the Illinois Department of Public Health. The state said first responders should assume everyone they encounter while on a call has the coronavirus.
"My personal position had been that we should follow Illinois Department of Public Health guidelines," Preckwinkle told reporters. "My understanding is that those guidelines suggested that our first responders should assume that any residence that they go to is possibly infected by COVID-19 since 80% of the people who get the disease have either mild symptoms or are asymptomatic."
Earlier this month, a McHenry County judge ordered such information be released to first responders, but also the names be kept confidential and purged from the 911 dispatch system seven days after the health department deems a patient no longer contagious.
Lake County Health Department officials also have opted not to provide patient information to police and first responders.
According to the Daily Herald, Cook County Corporation Counsel Laura Lechowicz Felicione said the county had yet to be served with a lawsuit, but she is already coordinating with the health department and state's attorney's office on a formal response.
