The Illinois National Guard is sending 30 service members to help with medical care at Stateville Correctional Center, where one inmate has died from the coronavirus and at least 48 more have tested positive.
The service members are medics from the Illinois Army National Guard’s 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team based in Urbana and will be setting up medical tents, triaging and providing medical care for inmates at the Crest Hill-based correctional center, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office.
Lt. Col. Brad Leighton, a spokesman for the Illinois National Guard, said the medics should arrive by the end of the week.
“It takes a couple days to screen [and] equip them,” Leighton said.
The medical help is intended to assist inmates who need care but not hospitalization. The medical tents will be “fully operational there before the end of the week,” Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said.
While the service members are treating inmates on site, the governor Tuesday said any inmate “who falls seriously ill with COVID-19 will receive available medical assistance to get through it, including an ICU bed, and a ventilator if necessary.”
“My administration will not be in the business of claiming one life is worth more than another,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker’s office on Wednesday said there are a total of 48 inmates at Stateville who tested positive for coronavirus. That’s 16 more cases than were reported Tuesday and up from zero confirmed cases last week.
There are nearly 37,000 people in the state’s prisons, according to Pritzker. State figures show around 20% of prisoners are over the age of 50. Thousands more have underlying medical conditions.
Illinois suspended all visits to the state’s prisons two weeks ago in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but cases continue to climb. The Illinois Department of Corrections so far has reported confirmed cases of COVID-19 at seven of its facilities, with 25 staff members testing positive as of Wednesday.
Criminal justice advocates have urged Pritzker for weeks to release thousands of people from Illinois prisons to alleviate overcrowding and blunt the spread of COVID-19.
Last week, more than a dozen public health experts from Chicago urged Pritzker to commute sentences for all prisoners over the age of 50, those who are medically vulnerable and inmates who have less than a year remaining of their sentences.
Pritzker said nearly 300 inmates were released as of Tuesday afternoon, including pregnant females and low-level offenders who are near completing their sentences. The governor also said the Department of Corrections is reviewing the case files of low-risk offenders who may be able to be released early.
“All have been thoroughly vetted to make sure that there are no histories of violence, and particularly domestic violence,” Pritzker said.
He did, however, acknowledge that “[ensuring] that each person released in this manner has a place to return to “has been “one of our greatest challenges.”
The Democratic governor assigned duties to about 60 Illinois National Guard service members on March 16 to assist the state with its COVID-19 response. Since then, a total of 430 Illinois Army National Guard members have been activated, the governor’s office said.
