Investigations

At noon on Friday, Bill Glembocki said his Brat Stop restaurant in Kenosha was buzzing with activity, preparing to do something he had not been able to do for weeks: open for business. “I want everybody to be safe,” Glembocki told NBC 5. “We don’t want anybody to get sick here. If you are sick, please don’t come and......

With less than six months to go until the general election and with concerns over social distancing at polling places, some Illinois leaders are pushing to significantly expand the use of vote-by-mail ballots. State Sen. Julie Morrison, a Democrat from Lake Forest, plans to introduce a bill that would allow the state to mail a ballot to every regis...

The Illinois Department of Public Health has listed a total of 11,469 coronavirus cases, and 1,553 deaths, in long-term care facilities across the state. But NBC 5 Investigates has tallied a total of 1,719 deaths, including 166 more deaths at nursing homes that have so far gone unrecorded by the state. Most — but not all — of the unrepo...

Authorities in Illinois say an Iowa man charged in 1990s serial killings “does not appear to have been involved” in the unsolved 1992 slaying of a college student

Of the 351 long-term care facilities currently identified by the Illinois Department of Public Health as having a coronavirus outbreak, 60 percent were cited for infection control violations, the latest federal data shows. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services updated the Nursing Home Compare tool last week for the first quarter of 2020, w...

It took a global pandemic to stop the one thing we all can’t stand: robocalls. Americans received 2.9 billion robocalls in the month of April, according to data collected by YouMail, a robocall blocking company. That’s about half the 5.6 billion automated calls that rang phones in October 2019. “Call centers around the globe have either shut down o...

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to decimate Chicago’s transportation industries.  Business shutdowns and Illinois’ stay-at-home orders have resulted in a massive shrinkage in the need for anyone to actually transport themselves to a downtown workplace.  Not only have thousands been shut out of their jobs, but many others are now wor...

Deaths at long-term care facilities now account for 44 percent, up from just over a third last week, of all coronavirus fatalities in the state, according to data released by the Illinois Department of Public Health and analyzed by NBC 5 Investigates. As of Friday evening, IDPH reported 1,082 deaths and 7,542 cases in long-term care facilities. Tha...

Public health experts say one crucial key in lifting stay-at-home orders and re-opening the economy is to identify all coronavirus cases and to trace contacts of each identified case. The practice is called contact tracing, and it is tedious work. “It is a very time-consuming, time-intensive process,” said Palak Panchal, the lead epidemiologist in ...

State Rep. John Cabello’s home county has seen a steep rise in new coronavirus cases and deaths in the last part of April. New testing in his community also does not meet national standards, NBC 5 Investigates has found.

There is no cure for COVID-19. There is also no FDA-approved medicine that prevents the virus. But that hasn’t stopped a former Chicago woman from touting a bleach mixture as a “simple, cheap, and widely available compound” that she contends will help prevent infection with the virus, and “assist someone’s healing if y...

The number of domestic violence calls in the city of Chicago and the greater Chicago area have seen “a marked increase,” according to figures released by the city and an advocacy group. “We are seeing a 15% increase in calls in the shelter-in-place time period over the same time period in 2019,” said Amanda Pyron, the executive director of The&#823...

It’s the key to everything about this pandemic:  testing, testing, testing. Most everyone agrees we’re not doing enough, yet it’s widely considered to be the benchmark by which we can eventually reopen America. NBC 5 Investigates has analyzed numbers published by the Illinois Department of Public Health, showing how many coronavirus tests have...