URBANA – As universities prepare to welcome students back to campus for the fall semester, some are counting on widespread COVID-19 testing to help clamp down on potential outbreaks. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, large white tents, with signs reading “Walk-Up COVID-19 Testing,” have been popping up across campus. On a sunny summer…
URBANA – A new statewide effort aims to provide vulnerable young people in Illinois with summer jobs. The COVID-19 Summer Youth Employment Program provides $9.3 million to fund summer jobs for 2,400 young adults with a focus on low-income youth living in high-poverty communities. State and local officials spoke at a press conference Monday, held…
CHICAGO – Thousands of workers travel to Illinois each year to work on farms, with the largest influx to central Illinois in the summer and fall. Amid concerns about COVID-19, the state’s department of public health is partnering with medical clinics to make testing available to farmworkers. The Community Health Partnership of Illinois, based in…
RANTOUL – As hundreds of migrant farmworkers arrive in central Illinois to work on detasseling — a process needed to create hybrid seed corn — local organizations are stepping up to provide services to the workers and their families. Martha Gonzalez, executive director of the Rantoul Multicultural Community Center, says the child care they offer…
CHAMPAIGN – Maricel Mendoza is familiar with the work migrant and seasonal farmworkers do. Growing up, her family traveled from Texas to central Illinois every year for her parents’ jobs as contractors with a large seed company. “All of my parents’ siblings were migrants, my grandparents were migrants,” Mendoza says. “So it’s just something that…
CHAMPAIGN – The child care industry, like many others, has been hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, as many day care centers and home-based child care providers were forced to either close or reduce their capacity as states implemented stay-home orders to slow the spread of the virus. As businesses slowly reopen, lack of access to…
CHAMPAIGN – Durante el fin de semana, la familia y los amigos de Joel Quintas se reunieron al aire libre en Champaign para recordarlo y para dar gracias a Dios por su vida.
CHAMPAIGN – Over the weekend, family and friends of Joel Quintas gathered outside in Champaign to remember him and thank God for his life.
URBANA – A group of local nurses is organizing an event Sunday aimed at raising awareness about how racism is a public health issue. The “White Coats For Black Lives” demonstration will take place at 1 pm Sunday at the Crystal Lake Park pavilion in Urbana. Champaign-Urbana nurse Cristina Kelly says recent protests against racial…
UPDATED June 25, 2020: C-U Public Health Administrator Julie Pryde says the Trump administration’s move to withdraw federal funding from some COVID-19 testing sites will not affect Champaign’s public drive-through testing site at Marketplace Mall. But come July, it will no longer be staffed by the Illinois National Guard. Pryde says she does not expect…
URBANA – Despite the precautions that will be taken when the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reopens this fall, campus officials acknowledge outbreaks could still occur. In a webinar Wednesday, campus officials provided more detail about reopening plans as they pertain to housing, in-person and online instruction and other aspects of campus life. Precautions to…
CHAMPAIGN – At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign began meeting daily with health care professionals from Carle Health System to discuss how to meet urgent needs in the health care community. Among those needs: personal protective equipment, or PPE, including N95 respirator masks, surgical gowns and…
CHAMPAIGN – The United Way of Champaign County, a local funder, is stepping up its efforts to provide grant funding and support to organizations across the community, as needs have grown due to job layoffs and other hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The group has raised more than a million dollars, together with the…
Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago announced Thursday they’ve performed the first successful double-lung transplant on a COVID-19 patient in the United States. The woman in her 20s was otherwise healthy but developed a severe case of COVID-19 that resulted in hospitalization, says Dr. Ankit Bharat, Northwestern’s chief of thoracic surgery. For two months,…
URBANA – Exposure to severe, chronic stress affects children’s growth and development. But while some children seem to be damaged by early adversity, others are able to thrive. Following a screening of the film “Broken Places” on WILL-TV on Monday, Illinois Newsroom spoke with a panel of local experts about how supportive relationships early in…