Chicago Fire Department paramedic tests positive for coronavirus

A Chicago Fire Department paramedic has tested positive for coronavirus and has now been quarantined, City Hall disclosed Tuesday.

The first confirmed case to any of the city’s first-responders was disclosed by Dr. Allison Arwady, the city’s health commissioner, during a conference call with reporters that included Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

“CDPH has already done an investigation [to] ensure the safety of fellow employees. There’s no indication that the member contracted the virus during a service call. The case is doing well in isolation at home,” Arwady said.

“The individual’s close contacts — for example, the partner — are in quarantine and we’re taking extra precautions, like doing a full cleaning of the station, screening other individual members to ensure that they’re not ill.”

The alarming disclosure prompted a barrage of questions.

What happens to the ambulance or the firehouse where the paramedic worked? Will it be taken out of service? Are any other firefighters and paramedics being quarantined? If so, are other fire and ambulance companies filling the void?

“Certainly, the firehouse has had a cleaning. We worked to identify close contacts. For example, the individual’s partner, who will be quarantined. The individual will be in isolation at home. And others who were not close contacts, we’ll be doing monitoring. For example, temperature checks to ensure people are not symptomatic,” Arwady said, describing those as “standard precautions and follow-up that we would do in any case.”

“We’ve been in very good communication with all of these folks on an individual level working closely with CFD. And we will also obviously be reaching out to anyone who this member helped transport. Not considered a particularly high-risk situation. But nevertheless, we will do a full investigation.”