Duane Stephens's guest appearances

Duane Stephens

Regional Media Podcast Network

Tom Campbell

Marlo Thomas

Jennifer Garner

Andrew Peterson

Brian Johnson

Joe Kenda

Don McLean

Kaitlyn Bristowe

Brian Posehn

Jonathan Bailor

Denise Ho

Kate Flannery

Paul Steinke

Lauren Lapkus

Matt Iseman

OwlTail

RaeAnn Tucker

As of Midnight on Wednesday, COVID-19 mitigation is in place in Region 2. That means no indoor dining at restaurants, no indoor service at bars, and capacity limits on gatherings of up 25 people or 25% of capacity in a building. RaeAnn Tucker and Duane Stephens joined WKEI on People to People to discuss the new mitigation effort and how it will fall to Henry County if it comes to the need to enforce the new mitigation efforts. Duane Stephens says that the Health Department is eager to work with restaurants and bars and to offer guidance.

RaeAnn Tucker And Duane Stephens HCHD COVID Mitigation

Henry and Stark County Health Department Director Duane Stephens tells WKEI he won't be surprised if Henry County ends up on the next list of counties to receive a warning from Governor Pritzker's office. According to Mr Stephens, last week Henry County's infection rate, the percentage positive tests among all COVID tests in the county, went over the 8% threshold two if not three days last week. August has seen more new infection of COVID-19 than the entirety of the previous 4 and a half months of partial shutdowns and quarantines. If the numbers continue to trend in the wrong direction, we could see the end of in restaurant dining and perhaps, schools being forced to return to an all E-Learning model. This is why the Health Department is so serious about masks. As Mr Stephens says, we can avoid these rollbacks by simply listening to the mitigation examples and taking them to heart.

Duane Stephens HSCHD COVID 19 County Update

By the time you read this, Henry County will have surpassed 400 individual cases of COVID-19 and more than 200 cases in the Month of August alone. The number might seem small compared to the population of Henry County but with each of those cases causing other cases due to proximity, the ripple effect is an increasing infection rate. Henry County has hovered around 5% of all tests returning positive for several weeks. If that percentage of tests rises, Henry County, as part of Region 2 could face penalties now being faced in Southern Illinois where the outbreak is larger and the infection rate is over 8%. The math and rationale is complicated but we broke it down well with Duane Stephens, director of the Henry and Stark County Health Department on People to People.

Duane Stephens Henry County COVID19 And Schools