NEW COVID-19 TESTING RULES FOR NURSING HOMES, GUIDELINES FOR HOUSES OF WORSHIP
State health officials announced the latest 104 deaths attributed to the coronavirus on Thursday as Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued new testing rules for nursing homes and guidelines for houses of worship with Illinois heading into Phase 3 of his reopening plan.
The state death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic rose to 5,186, while 1,527 newly confirmed cases brought the statewide case tally to 115,833, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Nearly 44% of those cases have occurred in long-term care facilities such as nursing homes, state Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said.
That has prompted Pritzker to enact a new emergency rule requiring every nursing home to develop its own individualized testing plan and to document an established relationship with a testing lab.
Each long-term care facility will be required to report to health officials the number of residents and staff tested and the number of positive and negative test results. The facilities also must make sure a copy of infection-control policies and procedures is provided to residents, the governor’s office said.
The governor said the rule doesn’t deviate from what the state is doing already, but it gives state health officials “additional teeth in securing buy-in from these private entities.”
The Health Care Council of Illinois said it “emphatically” agreed with Pritzker’s assessment that COVID-19 has been “unrelenting” on nursing home residents.
“All nursing homes — those with confirmed cases and those who have been spared the wrath of this disease — know testing at many stages is vital to fighting the coronavirus. We encouraged facility-wide testing since the beginning, and many facilities have proactively contracted with laboratories or partnered with hospitals to test residents and staff,” council executive director Pat Comstock said in a statement. “In accordance with this new regulation, nursing homes will submit testing plans to the state and welcome feedback from epidemiologists and other public health experts.”
Guidance for faith leaders
Meanwhile, after two Chicago-area churches had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block state health guidelines that limit religious gatherings to 10 people, Pritzker’s lawyers told the court in a filing Thursday that the religious challenge to his stay-at-home order is moot, as his order is expiring Friday and Illinois Department of Public Health guidance is kicking in.
Pritzker’s office also released recommendations for churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship as the state heads into the next reopening stage. The governor stressed his new recommendations were a “guidance, not mandatory restrictions, for all faith leaders to use to ensure the health and safety of their congregants.”
“This includes suggestions on capacity limits, new cleaning protocols, indoor gatherings of 10 persons or less, a reduction of activities like sharing food, and the safe conduct of outdoor congregating,” Pritzker said. “The safest options remain remote and driving services, but for those that want to conduct in-person activities, [the state health department] is offering best practices.”
The state safety guidelines recommend face coverings and suggest that, “Where weather and facilities permit, it is much safer for worship and other activity to occur outdoors rather than indoors.” The guidance also says, “Where the 10-person limit cannot be followed in places of worship . . . consider limiting attendance to 25% of building capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees, whichever is lower.”
Other guidelines include the strong consideration of “discontinuing singing, group recitation, and other practices and performances where there is increased likelihood for transmission from contaminated exhaled droplets.”
A conservative religious nonprofit group, the Thomas More Society, called Pritzker’s distinction of the guidelines as recommendations instead of requirements “a total and complete victory for people of faith.”
Judges test positive
A pair of Cook County judges have tested positive for COVID-19, marking the first cases of the coronavirus in judges of the Circuit Court.
Both work at the 5th Municipal District in Bridgeview, according to Pat Milhizer, spokesman for the office of the chief judge.
In total, 39 employees of the office of the chief judge have tested positive, Milhizer said. Most day-to-day court operations have been shut down until early July.