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Category: COVID-19

Published: Friday, May 15, 2020 02:39 PM

The state’s public health director is urging hospitals test all pregnant women for COVID-19 in an effort to better protect the expectant mother and child.

Dr. Ngozi Ezike said labor can mimic or cover up COVID-19 symptoms and data from hospitals with universal maternity testing shows positive rates of 3 to 12% for the disease. Ezike said it’s vital to know if an expectant mother is positive in order to protect the delivery team and have a plan for the mom after the delivery and the newborn baby.

Her push for testing pregnant women came during the daily COVID-19 briefing Friday in which she announced 2,432 infections had been discovered among the nearly 26,000 test results returned in the past 24 hours. That translates into a 9% positive rate.

There were also 130 deaths due to the disease in the past day. So far, 4,058 people have died since the state began tracking the outbreak nearly three months ago.

Heading into Friday, there were 4,367 people hospitalized with infections in Illinois. Of them, 26% were in Intensive Care Units and 675 were on ventilators.

Gov. JB Pritzker said the good news is that the positivity rate is coming down and currently all regions are showing numbers that, if they continue, would result in everyone moving to Phase 3 of the reopening.

The governor continued to emphasize expanded testing and test result capacity.

Four additional drive-thru sites will open in the coming days in Chicago’s Chatham community, Champaign, Peoria and Rolling Meadows.

The governor was asked if he thought Iowa’s reopening put Illinoisans in danger.

“I would warn the people of the Quad-Cities region to be extraordinarily careful,” Pritzker said.

Asked again about the whereabouts of his family, the governor accused Republican partisans of endangering his family with reckless inquiries that are fueling hate speech.

“I would hope the GOP, Republican super PAC that’s pushing stories like this will stop doing it,” Pritzker said. “They are putting my family in danger.”