PEORIA, Ill. — The Peoria City/County Health Department announced that Woodford County reported its first death related to COVID-19.
A woman in her 70’s died Monday due to complications of the virus according to Health Administrator Monica Hendrickson.
“She had underlying medical conditions, and based on recent travel as well as contact to a known positive,” Hendrickson said.
Peoria County has 44 confirmed cases, Tazewell has 26, and Woodford has 11, which brings the Tri-County total to 81 confirmed cases.
Hendrickson said that the peak for Illinois is now in mid-May.
“The reason why is we’ve seen a lot of cases in the Chicago area, and not so much in central Illinois or even southern Illinois,” Hendrickson said. “The count is now at 96 out of 102 counties that now have cases and they grow substantially.”
A coronavirus testing site opened Tuesday at the Heartland Health Services Center in Peoria’s East Bluff. As of 2:45 p.m. opening day, the location had performed 135 tests.
Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis said it is important to remain vigilant.
“Our community has been very vigilant and overall done a very good job of maintaining the social distancing to keep the COVID virus contained in this area,” Ardis said.
