×

Governor says hospital staffing becoming problem again as COVID-19 cases rebound to February levels

By WJBD Staff Dec 8, 2021 | 8:42 AM

As Covid-19 cases increase, Governor JB Pritzker says the state is taking steps to tackle the problem.

It’s mostly the Delta Variant leading the surge says the Governor, who has been talking with hospital leaders around the state and working to address the shortage of health care workers.

“We are working together to provide monoclonal antibodies to keep people out of hospital beds.  Working together to provide more home infusion services for monoclonal antibodies so people don’t need to go into emergency rooms for that.”

New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio is enacting a mandate for private sector workers.  The Governor was asked if that’s something we could see in Illinois.

“That again is not something that we have been looking at.  We have people that are getting vaccinated everyday.  In Illinois we want more people to get vaccinated.  I think you can see as more people get sick and go into the hospital nearly all of them are unvaccinated and that is causing a real problem.”

Just over 66% of Illinoisans ages five and up are now fully vaccinated.

The latest daily totals include more than 7,000 new cases and 78 additional deaths.  That’s the highest one day death toll since February.

The Fayette County Health Department is reporting two new deaths from Covid-19 related causes in their weekly report for last week.  There have now been 71 Covid-19 related deaths since the pandemic began in Fayette County.  The Department also reported 95 new cases of Covid-19 last week.