We have new information about the restaurant shut down by the Health Department. Rock Island County health workers defend the way they've handled the situation. We are finding out who knew what and when and another case of the virus is now confirmed. 

This one happening on Friday, bringing the number in just Rock Island County to 14. That brings the total number in our area to 20 cases, with 11 people being hospitalized. This all became public this week.

Two workers at the Milan McDonald's tested positive for Hepatitis A but TV6 has learned one of those tests came back a month ago. That timeline has a lot of people concerned and has raised a lot of questions in the community.

We broke the story last night at five that the Milan McDonald's was shut down this week after two employees were confirmed to have Hepatitis A. 

Even though the first case was confirmed back in mid-June, the Rock Island County Health Department didn't close the McDonald's until this past Wednesday. By then, another case had been confirmed.

The health department now says it didn't respond back then because it didn't know back then. The health department says it didn't find out about the case on June 9th until July 10th, a month later.

By law, the health department should have been notified within 24 hours. At a press conference Saturday afternoon, we were told that in this case the system broke down.

"There's a network of providers and there's a whole list of people responsible for reporting infectious diseases or communicable diseases," says Wendy Trute with the Health Department.

But the Health Department says the provider who diagnosed a Milan McDonald's employee with Hepatitis A back on June 9th did not report that case as required. As a result, another month went by before steps could be taken.

Given the fact that there are now 14 confirmed Hep-A cases in Rock Island County, the latest coming just yesterday, we asked what's being done to make sure another case doesn't fall through the cracks.

"We will be working with the State Health Department and providers to be reviewing procedures," Trute says.

In the meantime, the Health Department says in addition to the two confirmed cases we uncovered at the Milan McDonalds, there are also confirmed hepatitis a cases involving other local businesses.

The Health Department would not tell us which ones.

"Some of the people are employees, yes, and are employed at businesses," says Theresa Foes with the Health Department.

We then asked which businesses. Here's the response from Trute.

"You know what? It's not our policy to name them, nor is it the policy of the state health department. However, I can assure you we have worked with them and they have taken all the necessary pre-cautions required of them."

The Rock Island County Health Department says it can perform only as quickly as it's given information, and even then it still has to carefully assess the public risk before taking steps like closing down a business.

As far as communicating details to the public, the Health Department says it tries to balance the public's need to know with the needs of any business that may be involved.

We heard them say they won't reveal the names of businesses with confirmed cases. That means the only reason the public knows about the two Hepatitis cases at the Milan McDonald's is because of our investigation.