Mundelein Mayor Steve Lentz announced earlier this week that he has been free of COVID-19 symptoms for the past two weeks, along with his wife, who also contracted the virus in March.
“I just want to thank everyone that prayed for us and supported us during that time,” Lentz said. “We’re very, very grateful.”
Lentz announced the good news during the village board’s meeting April 13, roughly three weeks after he first disclosed that he and his wife had COVID-19 during a meeting March 23.
Lentz said the illness wasn’t easy to deal with, but noted how his particular situation was much easier to manage than what many others with COVID-19 have been going through.
He described his symptoms as mild but persistent. They lasted for about 10 days, he said, and consisted of a sore throat and heavy fatigue, which at its worst caused him to sleep for 16 hours.
He said they also didn’t have to take trips to the hospital while dealing with COVID-19.
“Both my wife and I are very back to normal,” he said. “I think I’m very fortunate relative to what other people are dealing with.”
During the illness, Lentz said he and his wife had friends who were willing to shop for them and bring them essential supplies. Lentz said they never had physical contact with these individuals.
The next stage for the Lentz household is making sure their home is disinfected.
“We’ve never had anyone inside the house since this whole thing began,” he said. “We’ve begun the research of seeing how long this thing lasts. But it starts with not letting anyone in the house until we get it locked down.”
During the recent village board meeting, he closed his update by praising his village for its low case numbers. Mundelein has somewhere between 50 to 54 confirmed cases, according to Lake County data.
He also stressed the importance of self-quarantining and containing any possible illnesses one may have, echoing similar sentiments he made three weeks ago about the need for social distancing. But Lentz has chosen to call it “physical distancing” because it sounds more neighborly, he said.
“My experience in having it just reinforces to me the importance of physical distancing,” Lentz said. “When I was infected but had no idea because there weren’t symptoms, yet, I could have infected a lot of people. But because physical distancing was in place when I was infected, I know I didn’t infect people during that time. … It’s a good lesson for all of us.”