CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A Will County teenager has died from COVID-19, Will County health officials said Tuesday.
The teen was apart of the state's largest single-day death toll, as officials announced Tuesday 144 more people died from coronavirus.
According to Steve Brandy, spokesman for the Will County Health Department, the teen is the youngest of the 145 people in Will County who have died of the disease caused by the coronavirus so far. The county reported nine deaths on Tuesday.
The person is listed as a female in her teens. Other details, including her exact age, were not available. But according to the Illinois Department of Public Health, she is one of only three people under the age of 20 in Illinois to have died from COVID-19 so far.
The death of a teen from COVID-19 is rare, but shows the potential fatal impact of the virus, Dr. Atul Gupta, medical director of infection prevention at Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox, told the Herald News.
"It really is looking like in the under-55 age group, death is extremely low – one in 100,000," Gupta said. "To see a teenager pass away is something we don't expect. There are people in the middle group, between 20 and 40, who have had no underlying conditions and who have passed away. We don't want people to think, 'I'm 35 or younger, and I'm healthy. It certainly can't happen to me.'"
Statewide, the number of reported deaths went past 2,000 on Tuesday. IDPH now lists 2,125 deaths from COVID-19. The state also reported 2,219 cases of coronavirus, taking the statewide total to 48,102.