McHenry County reports 70 new COVID-19 cases, three additional deaths Wednesday

The McHenry County Department of Health reported 70 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and three additional confirmed deaths Wednesday.

This brings the county’s totals to 24,109 confirmed and probable cases, 261 confirmed deaths and 29 deaths where the cause likely was COVID-19 but not confirmed. The county’s recovery rate currently sits at 98%.

Among the county’s latest deaths tied to COVID-19 were two men in their 80s, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health.

McHenry County residents have been tested a total of 263,640 times since the pandemic began, according to county-specific data collected by the IDPH.

As of Wednesday, the IDPH reported a total of 2,310,929 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered statewide and 41,140 in McHenry County. So far, 3.13% (9,665 of 308,570) of county residents have been fully vaccinated, meaning they’ve received all of the doses recommended for the vaccine they received.

To see definitions of key terms used in all COVID-19 updates, read this article: “Feeling lost in keeping up with the news?”

Earlier this month, Region 9 moved from Tier 1 to Phase 4, allowing for competitive high school sports to play, loosening capacity limits for retail and personal care businesses and enabling restaurants to serve parties of up to 10 people. Reaching Phase 5 of Gov. JB Pritzker’s reopening plan will come only when infection rates are minimal and/or more Illinois residents have been vaccinated.

The region could return to increased mitigations if:

First, either the region’s positivity rate rises to 8% or higher for three consecutive days or sees a sustained increase in test positivity rate.

As of Wednesday, McHenry County’s positivity rate was 5% and Region 9 was at 3.9%. The positivity rate has fallen eight out of the past 10 days.

Second, the region must also see either a sustained increase in COVID patients in hospital or staffed intensive care unit bed availability falls below 20% for three consecutive days.

As of Wednesday, Region 9 had 33% of its ICU beds available and McHenry County had 39.7%. Region 9 also reported 10 days of decreases in hospital admissions for COVID-19 out of the past 10 days.

Confused about the different tiers and phases of the governor’s COVID-19 response? Read this explanation of the Restore Illinois plan and its metrics.

The Kane County Health Department reported a total of 49,855 confirmed cases and 709 deaths Wednesday.

The Lake County Health Department reported a total of 54,512 confirmed cases and 915 related deaths Wednesday.

Statewide, the IDPH reported a total of 1,179,342 confirmed cases and 20,374 related deaths. So far, Illinois has conducted 17,804,537 COVID-19 tests. The statewide recovery rate is 98%.

Among McHenry County ZIP codes, Crystal Lake (60014) has the highest number of COVID-19 cases with a total of 3,605 confirmed cases, according to county data. Woodstock (60098) follows with 2,820 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: McHenry (60050) 2,574; Lake in the Hills (60156) 2,207; Algonquin (60102) 1,811; Huntley (60142) 1,762; Cary (60013) 1,690; Johnsburg and McHenry (60051) 1,623; Harvard (60033) 1,400; Marengo (60152) 983; Crystal Lake, Bull Valley and Prairie Grove (60012) 865; Wonder Lake (60097) 766; Spring Grove (60081) 589; Island Lake (60042) 331; Fox River Grove (60021) 288; Richmond (60071) 271; Hebron (60034) 140; Barrington (60010) 107; Union (60180) 101; and Ringwood and Wonder Lake (60072) 51.