* People really need to knock this off for crying out loud. Let her be…
Statement from Lisa Badger, Springfield Park Board trustee, on her coronavirus diagnosis – March 16, 2020:
Since learning over the weekend I am one of the first confirmed cases of coronavirus in Sangamon County, my life has been turned upside down. I join everyone who is feeling fearful and uncertain about what is happening and what is to come.
But I would please ask for time alone at home to recover with my family, as our local, state and federal officials work to stop the spread of this disease that has brought everything to a halt.
I had NO symptoms when I was in contact with the public from March 5th on. When I developed a slight fever and other symptoms that initially were unconcerning last week, I stayed home from work and contacted my healthcare team. I have not been out of the country, had any known contact with anyone who had traveled abroad, nor have I had direct contact with anyone who has yet tested positive for coronavirus. I assume I contracted this virus through community spread. Please understand, I used to work as a nurse, and I am very proactive about my health and underlying conditions.
I am in direct and constant contact with my doctors and recovering, although it is a slow process and I am concerned about getting worse instead of better.
I am a public official and proud of being open and accessible to my constituents and anyone who needs help. In addition to being a Springfield Park Board trustee, I work in a very visible position as a community affairs specialist in the State Treasurer’s office, and I am a union steward for Teamsters Local 916, a Democratic precinct committeeperson and am involved in many other ways in Springfield. I take pride in being easy to reach.
My family and I have been bombarded with negativity since my case went public: hundreds of texts, voicemails, Facebook messages and more. People are threatening to sue me. They’ve been terrible to my daughter.
I understand everyone is scared. I’m scared, too. But I’ve done nothing wrong. I have taken every precaution possible, and I caught this from someone else. Now I need time to rest and recover without the overwhelming stress of so many personal attacks and accusations.
Please, stop reaching out to me and my family. Call the Sangamon County Public Health Department and urge them to do more to help find out how I contracted the virus, and to do everything they can to test people with symptoms and ensure immediate treatment. If you’re concerned about exposure at the youth career fair I attended on behalf of the Treasurer, please contact the Treasurer’s office.
I love this community, and I only wish to be well again, and for all of us to be well. I will provide further updates as warranted. Thank you to everyone for respecting our privacy and for banding together during this difficult time to stop this pandemic as soon as possible.
* SJ-R…
Badger also expressed concern over how the Sangamon County Department of Public Health handled her case. She said the department has not followed up with her or her contacts appropriately and they have not collected data for the 14 days prior to her first known possible symptom on March 4.
“I attempted to offer that information and it was not being received,” she said.
Regarding that, Gail O’Neil, director of the Sangamon County Department of Public Health, said the department has been following the guidelines set by the state department of public health, choosing to focus on contacting people who may have been around her when she was most infectious.
“We’re really not concerned about where she got it at this point,” O’Neill said. “We’re concerned about where she may spread it and when she was most infectious … So, yeah, there wasn’t a long time backwards that we were responsible for following up on.”
Wait. The public health department isn’t concerned about where she got it?
- Proud Sucker - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 2:54 pm:
WHY would they not be concerned about where she contracted it? That is the other end of one vector. Yikes.
- Pot calling kettle - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 2:55 pm:
==The public health department isn’t concerned about where she got it? ==
At this point, with community spread, they probably do not have the personnel. And, what would be the benefit? She may have been exposed more than once, we may all have been. We should assume that everyone has been exposed, and work to keep as many people home as possible.
- JSS - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 2:55 pm:
Not much concern where she got it because the virus is out in the community at large as opposed a small group of individuals as it was in past weeks.
- Downstate Illinois - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 2:56 pm:
That’s the second time in two days I’ve seen the state’s public health department sticking to peacetime rules that should be thrown out at this point.
- NIU Grad - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 2:58 pm:
This kind of aggression towards victims is exactly why people are going to be hesitant to report their diagnosis if they test positive. Why subject yourself to this, on top of facing this illness, when the alternative is to hide under a rock and wait for other people to start reporting that they tested positive.
We are so very mentally unprepared for what is coming our away…
- Groundhog Day - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 2:59 pm:
Poster child for this outbreak: the person who is mildly sick or asymptomatic, yet spreading it everywhere they go. This is why we need lockdown, not just for the Boomers, but for those younger folks spreading it.
- FIREDup!! - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:03 pm:
I was notified by the Sangamon County Health Department that I may have been exposed. They said I should just continue with my regular day, no big deal! I am self-quarantining.
- Arock - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:05 pm:
The person that infected her may never have shown any symptoms at all to know they were sick, or like me as bad as my sinuses are at times with drastic weather changes I don’t know if it is my allergies in high gear at times or a mild cold. So many people are going to get this and not even know they had it.
- Proud Sucker - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:08 pm:
Fair enough. You are right that she’d probably had multiple exposures.
- Nick Name - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:11 pm:
What is wrong with people. Holy cripes.
- LakeCo - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:25 pm:
Do unto others and all that. Any one of us could be the next person to test positive.
- thoughts matter - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:27 pm:
There is no way for a person to know they have it if they aren’t tested and they don’t feel any different than when they have allergies. Until we can all get tests, we are all in the same possible situation as her. Currently we can’t get tested unless we are sick ‘enough‘.
Harassing her or her family members is counterproductive and totally classless. Call your federal senator or rep and ask them to get more tests and to make them available to all of us. That way the infected people can know to stay home.
- lake county democrat - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:28 pm:
Groundhog Day - yes, but she wrote she stayed home when she developed mild symptoms.
NoWhammy - people don’t attack you and your family when you get cancer. Hundreds of such attacks is what turned her life upside down, not getting COVAD19.
- Nick Name - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:29 pm:
===Dear Ms. Badger. A cancer diagnosis is having your life turned upside. This isn’’t cancer so please stop adding to the over dramatization.===
The typical cancer patient does not get “bombarded with negativity,” including “hundreds of texts, voicemails, Facebook messages and more,” plus threats of lawsuits and their children being harassed. Keep up.
- FormerParatrooper - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:29 pm:
People get angry when they are scared. They behave irrationally and lose the concept of social norms.
No need to harass those who are ill. This is not the dark ages and we understand now what viruses are and how they spread. It is not demons inside someone’s body.
- DoinStuff - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:41 pm:
== I had NO symptoms when I was in contact with the public from March 5th on.==
From SJ-R story:
==”Badger did not have any other symptoms until March 9 and March 10, when she again registered temperatures over 100 degrees. Out of caution, she stayed home from work. Though she did not have a fever during the day Wednesday, it spiked that evening to 101.9, prompting her to call her physician Thursday morning.”==
Um, these seem to contradict one another.
- thoughts matter - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:41 pm:
===Dear Ms. Badger. A cancer diagnosis is having your life turned upside. This isn’’t cancer so please stop adding to the over dramatization.===
==The typical cancer patient does not get “bombarded with negativity,” including “hundreds of texts, voicemails, Facebook messages and more,” plus threats of lawsuits and their children being harassed. Keep up.==
On top of that, this virus is deadly too especially to those of ill health. It also been leaving some survivors with permanent lung damage. I’d say that turns people’s lives upside down too.
- Morningstar - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:43 pm:
@No Whammy - health issues are not a competitive event. Save it for the NCAA tournament when it comes back.
- Lincoln Lad - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 3:55 pm:
What a sad commentary on what many of us have become. Now we attack the sick… and some seem to think that’s somehow appropriate. Ms. Badger - best of luck to you and ignore it all. Take care of yourself and your family as best you can, and some of us will pray for your recovery and safety.
- Annonin - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 4:24 pm:
This was the same treatment put on the St. Louis woman who traveled through IL. Police were needed to patrol her neighborhood. There are yokels everywhere — even here
- JS Mill - Monday, Mar 16, 20 @ 6:01 pm:
The people lashing out at this poor lady make me sick. It should be a crime.
I wonder why we were so unprepared for testing, this is an important component of containment yet the US wasn’t as ready as S. Korea?
- AnnieH - Tuesday, Mar 17, 20 @ 11:11 am:
Contact tracing was important early in the epidemic–it was particularly valuable in Wuhan–but once we have community spread it’s not nearly as useful. It’s incredibly labor intensive–I remember the days when public health staff had to climb up and down big public housing complexes with broken elevators to track down the contacts of people who’d tested positive for HIV–and right now there are far more important things for our stretched public health workers to be doing.