SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) - The Illinois Department of Public Health announced 18 additional cases in Illinois. Those cases span over eight counties now.
Governor JB Pritzker stressed during his daily COVID-19 press briefing to stay home if you can.
"Every action we take is an action to save lives." Pritzker said.
One of the new cases is a resident from Cumberland County who is a man in his 70s. Another case is a DuPage County woman in her 60s who resides in a long-term care facility.
Infection control measures are required for all nursing homes, additional vigilance for respiratory illness should be implement as well as increased cleaning, and visitor restrictions are to be implemented, officials said in a press release.
The Cumberland County resident was treated at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center in Mattoon.
The other cases are a man in his 70s in Woodford County, two cases in St. Clair County; a woman in her 60s and a woman in her 70s.
“As we expected, we are beginning to identify cases of COVID-19 outside of the Chicago area,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Over the past several days, we have announced aggressive measures to reduce and slow the spread of the virus in Illinois. These are not easy decisions to make and we are not taking them lightly, but we believe these actions will help limit the spread of the virus in our communities and keep our residents safe.”
Officials are still working to find out how each resident got COVID-19.
"It is vitally important that we implement social distancing measures, such as staying home and cancelling large events. These are actions that can reduce the number of infections that occur in the community, and ultimately alleviate the strain on our health care systems,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike
The total number in Illinois is now 64. There are four new cases in Cook County, seven new cases in Chicago, one in Kane and one in Lake counties.
