Vermilion County health care professionals are reminding families to continue social distancing in light of the on-going threat from the COVID-19 coronavirus. Melissa Rome, Emergency Planning and Preparedness Coordinator for the Vermilion County Health Department says this is ‘’not a playtime for kids’’ just because they are out of school.
Rome said on WDAN Radio’s Newsmakers program Wednesday that the social distancing is to help prevent the spread of the virus – even though, so far, no cases have been confirmed in Vermilion County….
{‘’You saw the hoards of people going to get toilet paper, and water, and bread and all of that, and the shelves being depleted. Think of if we had to do that to our hospitals – if we all had to race to the hospitals,’’ said Rome. ‘’So that is the purpose of being quarantined – or at least social distancing for a couple of weeks. So that we don’t – all of the sudden – have a hundred cases in the county that we are inundating OSF, and Carle, and Christie, and all of our resources.’’}
Corina Masterman of OSF Infection Control explained what OSF is doing to screen patients…
{Well, right now we are screening all of our patients that come through the ED (Emergency Department). We have guidelines that are set by IDPH (Illinois Department of Public Health) of who can be tested – who meets the criteria to be tested, and who does not. We are watching our nurses – monitoring them,’’ said Masterman.}
Masterman adds the public can help prevent emergency departments from being overrun with patients should the situation worsen….
{‘’If that they have signs and symptoms – go to 1-833-OSF-KNOW. So that’s 1-833-673-5669. Peoria has developed a call center up there that has nurses that are trained in COVID-19. So that helps. We also have CLARE, which is on www.OSFHealthcare.org. And if you feel that you have symptoms of COVID-19, you can either go to the website or go on Facebook because we have a lot of information on our page,’’ added Masterman.}
You can listen to the entire program featuring Rome, Masterman and Vermilion County Health Department Administrator Doug Toole by going to the podcast section on the homepage of VermilionCountyFirst.com.
