McHenry County reports 72 new COVID-19 cases, no additional deaths

The McHenry County Department of Health reported 72 new cases of COVID-19 and no new deaths Friday.

This brings the total number of cases in the county to 28,297 cases, 276 confirmed deaths and 29 cases in which the cause likely was COVID-19 but could not be confirmed.

The county’s recovery rate remained at 99%.

As of Friday, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported a total of 9,719,958 doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered statewide, including 222,918 in McHenry County.

So far, 30.78% (94,980 of 308,570) of county residents have been fully vaccinated, meaning they’ve received all of the doses recommended for the vaccine they received.

In February, Region 9 moved from Tier 1 to Phase 4, allowing for competitive high school sports to be played, loosening capacity limits for retail and personal care businesses, and enabling restaurants to serve parties of as many as 10 people.

The state now is on track to move to a bridge phase May 14 ahead of Phase 5, Gov. JB Pritzker announced Thursday afternoon. The bridge phase will last 28 days, which is two coronavirus incubation cycles, for monitoring, Pritzker said.

If there is not a sustained increase in hospitalizations, hospital admissions for COVID-19-like illness, new cases or deaths over that 28-day period, the state will advance to Phase 5. The state already has met the criteria in terms of the percentage of residents 16 and older to receive at least one dose of a vaccine.

As of Friday, 80.14% of those 65 and older had received at least one dose. Additionally, 55.95% of those 16 and older had received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the state’s dashboard. The state also reported that COVID-19-related deaths are on the rise, while total hospitalizations have stabilized and new admissions are declining.

As of Friday, McHenry County’s positivity rate stayed at 6.3%, and Region 9 fell to 3.6%, marking the region’s 104th day below the 8% threshold to return to increased mitigations.

Additional mitigations also could take effect if the region were to experience a sustained increase in hospitalized COVID-19 patients and if staffed intensive care unit bed availability were to fall below 20% for three consecutive days.

Region 9 had 25% of its ICU beds available as of Friday and reported that COVID-19-related hospital admissions decreased six out of the past 10 days.

Statewide, the IDPH reported 1,351,497 cases, 22,171 confirmed deaths and 2,353 probable deaths. Neighboring Lake County’s health department reported 60,347 confirmed cases and 974 deaths as of Thursday, while to the south, the Kane County Health Department reported 57,463 cases and 769 deaths as of Friday afternoon.

Among McHenry County ZIP codes, Crystal Lake (60014) has the highest number of COVID-19 cases with a total of 4,326 confirmed cases, according to county data. Woodstock (60098) follows with 3,299 cases.

The McHenry County health department reports ZIP code data only for parts 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) 2,993; Lake in the Hills (60156) 2,635; Algonquin (60102) 2,118; Huntley (60142) 2,065; Cary (60013) 1,975; Johnsburg and McHenry (60051) 1,870; Harvard (60033) 1,560; Marengo (60152) 1,165; Crystal Lake, Bull Valley and Prairie Grove (60012) 1,009; Wonder Lake (60097) 918; Spring Grove (60081) 689; Island Lake (60042) 388; Fox River Grove (60021) 347; Richmond (60071) 311; Hebron (60034) 169; Barrington (60010) 147; Union (60180) 129; and Ringwood and Wonder Lake (60072) 55.