The Kendall County Health Department (KCHD) is reporting 1287 cases of coronavirus (COVID-19), 870 in-recovery and deaths remain at 23.

Kendall County Health Department COVID-19 Data Dashboard

Kendall County Health Department COVID-19 Information Page

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Until a COVID-19 vaccine or preventive treatment is available, management of the COVID-19 pandemic will rely on a tried and true public health measure called contact tracing to keep you, your family, and your community safe. This method has been employed successfully for decades by the Illinois Department of Public Health and local health departments to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, such as vaccine preventable diseases, Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and sexually transmitted infections. Contact tracing for COVID-19 is a bit different because it needs to be executed on a significantly larger scale, adapting to unique challenges of the virus, including its spread by people without symptoms.

In general, contact tracing involves identifying people who have an infectious disease (cases) and people who they came in contact with (contacts) and working with them to stop the spread of the disease. This includes asking people with COVID-19 to isolate and their contacts to quarantine at home voluntarily.

Contact tracing for COVID-19 typically involves:

• Interviewing people with COVID-19 to identify everyone they had close contact with during the time they may have been infectious.
• Notifying contacts of their potential exposure.
• Referring contacts for testing.
• Monitoring contacts for signs and symptoms of COVID-19.
• Connecting contacts with services they might need so they can remain at home during the self-quarantine period.

To prevent the further spread of disease, people who had contact with someone with COVID-19 are encouraged to stay home and maintain social distance (at least 6 feet) from others until 14 days after their last exposure to a person with COVID-19. Contacts should monitor themselves by checking their temperature twice daily and watching for COVID-19 symptoms, such as cough or shortness of breath.

If you have any further questions about contact tracing, please call (630)553-9100.