Ransomware groups are fleeing the spotlight in the wake of increased scrutiny by U.S. law enforcement after the hack of Colonial Pipeline. Researchers say it's unlikely they'll stay offline for good.
Top officials from Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration claimed Thursday that they were misled by leadership at the state Department of Veterans’ Affairs regarding a deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the state-run LaSalle Veterans’ Home.
Deputy Gov. Sol Flores and Illinois Department of Public Health Director Ngozi Ezike said, as a result of this misinformation, they were unaware of the breakdown in basic infection control protocols at LaSalle that led to a November COVID-19 outbreak that killed 36 veterans.
During the nearly four-hour House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing Thursday, Flores blamed senior officials at IDVA and the home for the staff’s failure to follow state and federal health guidelines.
/
As a panel of state lawmakers prepares to grill members of Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration over how a COVID-19 outbreak at a state-run veterans’ home grew so massive it killed more than a quarter of the facility’s residents in the fall, Republicans in the Illinois House on Tuesday sent Attorney General Kwame Raoul a letter urging his office to open a criminal investigation into the matter.
The hearings and letter come on the heels of a damning report published by Pritzker’s office April 30, which places blame for the deadly viral outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home on a variety of factors, including lack of preparation, absentee leadership, lax COVID protocols and poor communication not just within the facility, but at the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
Neumer appeared in front of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Tuesday, answering questions about the process behind his investigation. The committee’s hearing on the LaSalle home outbreak will continue Thursday, when the panel will grill representatives from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Department of Public Health and Gov. JB Pritzker’s office.
Read more:
Tuesday’s hearing was much shorter than Thursday’s is likely to be, and Neumer mostly stuck to the methodology behind his investigation into the outbreak, which ended with more than a quarter of the LaSalle home’s population dead after testing positive for COVID.