In the last week, Randolph County has noted one more COVID-19 related death while Monroe County reported three.
However, Monroe County Health Department Administrator John Wagner released a statement on April 1 noting that he will no longer be reporting deaths for the county.
“The accuracy of the state classifying individuals is not consistent with the level of truth that I as the administrator am comfortable with,” Wagner said.
He has for some time been questioning the way that the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) has been determining what is considered as a COVID death, but had been still reporting their numbers.
Wagner pointed out that with three of the county’s most recent deaths: two were individuals that were positive in October and had been released; and one was positive back in September, suffered an injury in December and had been hospitalized since due to the injury and then subsequently passed in March.
For more COVID-19 updates, please see this week’s print edition.