McHenry County reports a total of 249 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 over the weekend

The McHenry County Department of Health reported 249 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 over the weekend.

This includes new cases reported on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. There were no additional deaths since Friday's update.

That brings the county's total case count to 5,633 confirmed cases, 120 related deaths and five probable deaths. The county's recovery rate currently sits at 97%.

McHenry County residents have been tested a total of 93,302 times since the pandemic began, according to county-specific data collected by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The Kane County Health Department reported a total of 15,476 confirmed cases and 341 deaths Monday.

The Lake County Health Department reported a total of 19,579 confirmed cases and 503 related deaths.

Statewide, IDPH reported a total of 347,161 confirmed cases and 9,236 related deaths. So far, Illinois has conducted a total of 6,824,237 COVID-19 tests. The statewide recovery rate is 97%.

The McHenry County Department of Health now is reporting on four metrics designed to help school administrators decide when it may be safe to gradually begin reopening schools and when to return to a hybrid or remote-learning approach.

The metrics used on the new dashboard are incidence rate (number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people a day), test positivity rate (percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive), the trend of hospital admissions for COVID-19-like illness and the weekly count of new confirmed cases.

The first three of these four metrics are reported everyday Monday through Friday based on a seven-day rolling average of the data with a three-day lag. The weekly count of new cases will be updated once a week, also with a three-day lag, according to the health department.

On Monday, the incidence rate was reported at 19 cases, above the upper threshold of 14 cases, which is an indicator for when schools might consider transitioning back to a hybrid or remote-learning model in the county's reopening plan.

The county's test positivity rate was 6.7% as of Monday and there were five hospital admissions for COVID-19-like illness reported. The weekly case count was last reported Oct. 4 at 313 new cases, 27 of which were identified in children ages three to 18, according to the dashboard.

Among McHenry County ZIP codes, Crystal Lake (60014) has the highest number of COVID-19 cases with a total of 866 confirmed cases, according to county data. Woodstock (60098) follows with 786 cases.

The McHenry County health department reports only ZIP code data that is located within McHenry County, a department spokeswoman said. Any discrepancies between county and IDPH numbers likely are because of the data's provisional nature and because each health department finalizes its data at different times, she said.

The following is the rest of the local breakdown of cases by ZIP code: Harvard (60033) 523; McHenry (60050) 499; Lake in the Hills (60156) 522; Algonquin (60102) 462; Huntley (60142) 397; Cary (60013) 330; Johnsburg and McHenry (60051) 286; Marengo (60152) 204; Crystal Lake, Bull Valley and Prairie Grove (60012) 179; Wonder Lake (60097) 164; Spring Grove (60081) 113; Island Lake (60042) 79; Fox River Grove (60021) 62; Richmond (60071) 61; Hebron (60034) 31; Barrington (60010) 25; Union (60180) 18; and Ringwood and Wonder Lake (60072) nine.

Two ZIP codes in McHenry County (61038 and 60135) have reported five cases or fewer, according to the health department.