Egyptian Health Department serves White, Gallatin, and Saline counties. Public Health Administrator Jamie Byrd and CEO Angie Hampton visited with WROY/WRUL News Wednesday afternoon to provide an update. As of 3:30pm Wednesday, Byrd confirmed “There have been 18 individuals in our Tri-County area (Saline, White & Gallatin) tested [for Covid-19]; we’ve received results for 7 of those and they’ve all been negative so so far, so good. We also found on our Illinois Surveillance website that we had a local individual I guess it was in Mayo Clinic and they tested them while they were there and they were negative as well. So there’ve been 19 tests total; 8 negative; the other 11 are still at the lab. The local provider takes the swab. They then send those over to the Department of Public Health Laboratory in Carbondale. It’s not a super fast process but they’re doing the best they can and they’re also being inundated with some testing from Chicago labs being sent down so they’re not just doing our testing, but also testing from around the state.”
With the amount of testing taking place, there have been concerns that the time it takes to get results is going to get longer and longer. To that, Byrd says, “Generally speaking, if the specimens get to the lab by 11am, we can expect results that afternoon or maybe the next morning so it’s been about a 24-48 hour turnaround which is pretty good all things considered.”
Hampton added that public health departments don’t actually have the test kits. She explains, “the local health providers test and then they contact us to get an approval number stating that the person they want to test actually meets the IDPH criteria for testing.”
Byrd says the protocol for testing for Covid-19 requires that an individual displays symptoms consistent with the disease and then also tests negative for a panel of tests including influenza strains to eliminate the chance it’s one of those illnesses. Many local health providers are setting up drive thrus or tents, similar to Ferrell Clinic in Carmi. A spokesperson for them confirmed to us that it’s not specifically a Covid-19 triage center, instead saying that the hospital has the means to test people and individuals would be sent to the actual hospital in Eldorado if need be. She said the tent was set up to screen patients who may be infected prior to them entering the facility. The clinic can also provide testing for Flu, strep, and RSV in the tent to assist in compliance with social distancing recommendations and in an open air atmosphere to help protect patients from any unknown contamination.
Hampton agrees that social distancing and following the guidelines that have been laid out are ultimately the best course of action for local citizens to take. “From our perspective what we’re encouraging our communities to do is to really heed Governor Pritzker’s advice. He’s been updating our communities daily and actually today there were two different updates. But he and the other lead state agencies are working diligently on this and they’re issuing guidance every time they provide one of these press briefings and we would have to continue to promote his message of social distancing. It’s just really important that people if they can stay home. We have implemented with our own staff at Egyptian, we’ve implemented telework where we have the majority of our staff working from home and then at the agency we just have essential staff including our nursing staff, our incident command team, our behavioral health crisis team members and then our reception and support staff.”
WROY/WRUL will visit with Ferrell Hospital’s Infection Control Medical Director, Dr. Jackson Thursday morning and provide additional details at that time. Stay with The Original Company media properties for the absolute latest on Covid-19 and all other important developments.
