A man in his 70s who lived at the Generations at Peoria nursing home has died. It's the fifth COVID-19 death in a nursing home reported in the Tri-County area since the pandemic began. Peoria City/County health department administrator Monica Hendrickson says OSF HealthCare, UnityPoint, Heartland Health Services, and the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria are preparing to train local nursing home staffers how to administer the tests to residents. "They've created the curriculum, they've even found videos as well to even start prepping individuals. Really now it's about getting supplies to those entities. So we've put out requests for over 1,000 test kits as our first request, and hopefully we can get some in here," Hendrickson said. Those tests will be sent from a state lab. Hendrickson said testing within their facilities prevents residents from requiring transportation to an off-site testing clinic - a scenario which could place them and others at greater risk. Hendrickson said the Illinois Department of Public Health isn't considering deploying one of its nursing home "strike teams" to Central Illinois at this time to perform testing."Really the strike teams are going to be focused on entities that they see a large, quick growth as well as trying to understand the spread of the virus," she said. Hendrickson said local nursing home staff are managing the health of vulnerable populations well so far through regular temperature checks, visitor restrictions and other precautions. But she noted nursing home residents are one of the most vulnerable populations to COVID-19. Staff can receive COVID-19 testing at local Heartland Health Services sites.
The Tri-County area reports seven COVID-19 deaths total. All seven were in their 70s or older. The region records 143 cases currently.
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