Prairie State Wire

Local health departments are tasked with helping the Illinois Public Health Department produce an accurate COVID-19 death toll for the state, but the former is doing so without any uniform standards from Springfield.

There is confusion among the state’s coroners and medical examiners in regard to determining the role the respiratory disease played in a person’s death: whether it was “probable” or “suspect.”

According to IPHD Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike, the state is working hard to do away with cases in which the coronavirus hugely factored into an individual’s passing in spite of how they tested.

“If there was a gunshot wound, an acute gunshot wound, if there was a motor vehicle accident — we know that was not related to the COVID-positive status,” Ezike told WCIA, adding that some deaths involved the coronavirus-positive person perishing from other factors.

Ezike admitted the passing of a coronavirus patient with pre-existing conditions presents a gray area in which it is difficult to determine the actual cause of death. But she said the deaths of patients with the virus from associated illnesses definitely go toward the official death tally. As of June 26, Illinois reported 140,291 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, including 6,847 deaths.

To get a proper read on the state’s virus deaths, IDPH is dependent on the expertise of the state’s physicians, coroners, and medical examiners. Most deaths occur at a hospital or a hospice, prompting a medical doctor’s assistance.

HSHS St. John’s Hospital pulmonologist Dr. Manjeshwar Prabhu told WCIA that a doctor who sees a patient stricken with the illness usually conducts numerous tests, which could help in the event the patient perishes from the disease and the physician must complete a death certificate.

However, Prabhu bluntly stated that a doctor does not really know if a person died from the coronavirus.