* A.D. Quig at Crain’s…

Amid record-breaking hospitalizations during the omicron wave, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced today that 2,048 health care workers have been deployed across the state; 919 are on-site supporting hospitals hit hard by COVID. Another 552 will arrive at hospitals by next Friday. Another 577 are part of “reaction teams” that will respond quickly to overwhelmed hospitals this week and next.

“Even more personnel are being made available to individual hospitals” asking for federal assistance. FEMA-provided personnel are helping hospitals in Rockford. “The vast majority of serious illnesses and deaths are among the unvaccinated,” Pritzker said.

Health workers from out of state will continue to be allowed to work in Illinois hospitals, Pritzker said at a press conference today. He announced initiatives to ease the strain at Illinois hospitals: Doctors who received medical training in another country will be allowed to provide assistance to licensed physicians. And out-of-state physicians, nurses and mental-health providers will be allowed to perform telehealth work if there is a pre-existing relationship between the provider and the patient.

* Heather Cherone at WTTW…

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said the state would pay a premium for the additional workers under contracts in place to ensure that hospitals have adequate staff.

Many health care workers have quit, exhausted by a pandemic that is on the verge of entering its third year, while others are in isolation because they contracted COVID-19, Ezike said.

“We are pulling on every lever,” Ezike said. “Records have been smashed.”

* More…

* WSIL…

Currently in Region 5, most of southern Illinois, 5 ICU beds of a total 74 staffed beds are available. Region 5 has seen 9 days of COVID-19 patient increases, with 147 individuals currently hospitalized.