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ARLINGTON HEIGHTS (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The third person to test positive for the coronavirus in Illinois is being treated at a northwest suburban hospital, as local school officials warned that staff members may have been exposed to the disease.
While positive test results still have to be confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control, the patient is “hospitalized in isolation” at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, Northwest Community Healthcare officials said in a statement Monday.
Further details were not immediately released to protect the patient’s privacy, but a doctor will provide more information about the case at a news conference Monday afternoon near the hospital’s Central Road campus.
The case was announced Saturday in a joint statement from the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Cook County Department of Public Health.
Health officials are currently in the process of tracking down people who may have come into contact with the patient, though they did not say where the person is from.
“This evening I was notified that two staff members and their children (who work at/attend Dryden, Ivy Hill, Greenbrier, and Olive Mary Stitt) were contacted by a babysitter,” district superintendent Lori Bein said Sunday in a letter to parents. “A member of the babysitter’s family, a hospital employee, was exposed to a patient diagnosed with coronavirus. None of these people have any symptoms currently. Our employees /students will stay home and self-monitor their symptoms, and they have been in contact with their physicians.”
Illinois state officials have requested a CDC team be sent to help with the response.
A Chicago couple who contracted the coronavirus in January were the first and only Illinois residents to test positive for the disease until this third patient was announced. They were released from a Hoffman Estates hospital earlier this month, and have since made a full recovery, health officials said.
On Friday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced plans to expand testing for the disease.
Health officials are advising the public to “remain vigilant about keeping germs from spreading, by covering coughs and sneezes, washing hands with warm soap and water, and staying home when sick,” though they said people don’t need to alter their daily routines.