With daily new Covid cases in Will County at severe risk level for COVID-19 because of the highly contagious Omicron variant, free home tests sent by President Biden’s administration are now available for every household. Households who request a test will receive four tests free of charge, simply by providing a contact name, residential address, city, state, and zip code.
Last week, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) reported 201,428 new confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state, including an increase of 444 deaths since Dec. 31, 2021. Will County health officials declared a Severe Risk Level for the area, with daily cases reported at 192 per 100 thousand (based on a 690 thousand total population), and a positivity test rate of 23%.
Free tests will arrive within seven to 12 days of ordering through the United Postal Service, but Marshall Tillis of Joliet is concerned the action might be a little late.
“The scary thing is by the time I order the test and get it, it might be too late for me to know if I have COVID,” he said. “What do I do in meantime? Isolate and quarantine, not knowing if I have COVID or not.
“The bad thing is the pandemic has really hurt our (African-American) community,” he said. “I know so many people who contracted COVID.”
Mary Bronski of Bolingbrook said she is glad the government is intervening as every pharmacy she visited over the weekend was out of stock of the home tests.
“I went to Joliet, Plainfield, Shorewood and Romeoville pharmacies,” she said. “They are completely out of stock and that is scary. I just hope we can get the home tests in a timely manner.”
In addition to the new testing program, there are many other options for area residents to get tested. There are pharmacies participating in the federal pharmacy free testing program as well as a surge of free testing sites, with more free testing sites opening each week. Additionally, the Biden administration has provided schools $10 billion in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to get tests to K-12 school districts. And the administration also invested in ARP funding to cover free testing for uninsured individuals as well as support for testing in prisons, shelters for people experiencing homelessness, and mental health facilities, according to a press release from the Biden administration.
Currently, Illinois Department of Public Health is reporting a total of 2,589,640 cases, including 29,099 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. As of last week, 7,320 individuals in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 1,148 patients were in the Intensive Care Unit and 657 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators. Updated data analysis shows almost 90% of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Illinois are unvaccinated.
As of Jan. 7, IDPH reported 131,643 COVID cases for Will County, an increase of 1,964 more cases than were reported just a day earlier. Region 7, which includes Will, Grundy, Kendall, Kane, Lake, DuPage, Kankakee and McHenry counties as of Jan. 9 had 13 ICU beds available of 133 and 50 ventilators available of 120, according to the IDPH.
Visit COVIDtests.gov. to order a home test kit