2 doctors at Rush Oak Park Hospital test positive for coronavirus
OAK PARK, Ill. - Two emergency room doctors at Rush Oak Park Hospital have tested positive for coronavirus and are now quarantined at home, the hospital announced Thursday.
One doctor may have had contact with patients and coworkers when the doctor was contagious, Rush Oak Park Hospital spokesman Tobin Klinger said in an emailed statement.
The other doctor hadn’t seen patients for several days prior to testing positive, when he would have been contagious, Klinger said.
The hospital is “assessing the overall risk of exposure, working with the Illinois Department of Public Health and advising patients and peers as appropriate,” Klinger said. It is likely the doctors contracted the virus from the community.
“In these uncertain times, one thing is for certain: staff in our healthcare systems are heroes for providing comfort and care under difficult circumstances with a highly transmissible disease,” Klinger said. “… We wish our colleagues a speedy recovery.”
The announcement comes a day after Oak Park issued a state of emergency and became the first Illinois municipality to issue a shelter-in-place order to stop the spread of the coronavirus, COVID-19.
On Wednesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced that cases of coronavirus in Illinois had nearly doubled to 288.
“If you don’t feel well, please stay home. … You should just assume that you may have coronavirus. Just assume that,” Pritzker said at a news conference in downstate Murphysboro.