Two more residents of Willow Crest die from COVID-19 as death toll climbs to 22 in county

SANDWICH – Two additional residents of Willow Crest Nursing Pavilion died from complications because of COVID-19, the DeKalb County Health Department announced on Thursday.

It was the third straight day with a reported death at the long-term care facility, which is the site of the second deadliest outbreak of COVID-19 locally to date.

The residents, a woman in her 80s and a woman in her 90s, were the eighth and ninth to die at the facility, which has 55 total cases reported. Of those, 35 are in residents and 20 are in staff members.

The other facility the county considers in outbreak mode, Pine Acres Rehab and Living Center, remained stable with 55 cases among residents and 26 among staff. Pine Acres went almost a month without any new reported activity because of the viral respiratory disease, until July 27, when a new case was reported in an employee.

County health departments track cases based on the reporting system: Testing sites across the state are mandated to report cases linked to a residents’ address to the Illinois Department of Public Health who then report them to respective local health departments, which then gets announced to the public.

In some cases at Willow Crest, there may be cases linked to the long-term care facility which don’t count toward the total cases in DeKalb County since an employee, for instance, could have an address outside the county.

Two other long-term care facilities in the county remain out of outbreak mode, including DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing Center, which reported three cases in staff June 3, and none since. Bethany Rehabilitation and Health Care Center reported two cases in employees June 8, and none since.

Local long-term care facilities account for the majority of deaths in DeKalb County and have combined 21 of the total 28 deaths in the county. Of the countywide deaths, 19 have been in residents older than 80, three in their 70s, two in their 60s, three in the 50s and one in their 40s.