'Grim Milestone' For Cook County Medical Examiner: Preckwinkle

GLENVIEW, IL — As deaths in the United States recently topped 100,000 due to COVID-19, many medical examiner offices across the nation are seeing increases in workloads. Cook County, for example, has now surpassed all the cases it handled in 2019, according to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

Last year, the Cook County Medical Examiner Office determined cause and manner of death in 6,274 cases. In 2020, the office has already handled more than 6,600 cases to date. The office has also confirmed approximately 3,700 COVID-19 deaths since the first known death from the virus on March 16. In order to keep up with the exponentially higher caseload, some personnel have worked 16-hour shifts and others have worked seven days a week, according to Preckwinkle.

“I am so grateful to the personnel at the Medical Examiner’s Office who have worked around the clock since March to keep up with a mounting caseload,” Preckwinkle said in a statement Wednesday. “The men and women who are tasked with chronicling these deaths have one of the most difficult jobs during this pandemic.”

In Glenview, there have been 29 coronavirus-related deaths since the Cook County Medical Examiner began registering deaths in the village on April 7. The most deaths in a single day were four on April 14.

As of May 22, there have been 34 coronavirus-related deaths at long-term care facilities in Glenview. These numbers include both residents and employees of the long-term care facilities.

According to Preckwinkle, to ensure that Cook County's decedents are "treated with dignity," the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office has worked with Cook County Department of Emergency Management and Regional Security to acquire a surge center to expand morgue capacity and ease hospital morgues due to COVID-19. Preckwinkle estimates the county's indigent coordinator has worked with hundreds of families throughout the pandemic to assist in making final arrangements for loved ones.

“I thank our dedicated team who realizes how critical our role is in this pandemic and take that responsibility very seriously,” Chief Medical Examiner Ponni Arunkumar said. “The decedents under our care are treated the way we’d want our loved ones to be treated. It’s a guiding principle in our office.”

Even before the pandemic began, the Medical Examiner’s Office had started to see a dramatic increase in caseload, according to Preckwinkle. The office has handled close to 700 cases above last year’s total at this time in addition to COVID-19 deaths. Arunkumar attributes much of the increase to opioid toxicity. There are already 503 confirmed opioid overdose deaths this year. This does not include the 567 cases that are currently pending. Of those, Arunkumar estimates 70-80 percent will be confirmed as opioid overdose deaths as well. There were 689 opioid overdose deaths confirmed during the same period last year.

For more information about cases the Medical Examiner’s Office handles, visit the case archive. For specific information about COVID-19 deaths, visit the Office’s COVID-19 dashboard.

• 29 Total Coronavirus Deaths Confirmed In Glenview