At least five area residents tied to long-term care facilities in Kankakee County died in just two days from April 17th to April 18th this past weekend. The deaths were announced by local funeral homes early this week.
A Peotone area resident became the first COVID-19 related death at a long-term care facility in Kankakee following an announcement by a family in a local obituary reported Monday. That resident reportedly died at Riverside’s Miller Center due to the Virus. At least two other residents from Miller died over the weekend.
No word if those deaths were related to COVID-19.
Other long-term care facilities residents that died the weekend of April 17th included residents of Riverside Senior Living in Kankakee and Bickford of Bourbonnais.
Sunday, Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike explained that even if someone was in a long term care facility in hospice, that death would still be counted as a COVID-19 related death.
“If you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means technically even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it’s still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone who’s listed as a COVID death doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of the death.” Dr. Ezike outlined.
We’ve reached out to representatives from the facilities and the Coroner’s Office for a cause of death on individuals who died over the weekend.  As of tonight, no response had been received.
