McHenry County sees uptick in vaccinations over last week

While the number of vaccines given out each week in McHenry County is constantly changing from week to week, the county’s seven-day average of vaccines administered increased by more than 100 in the past week.

As of Thursday, an average of 623 vaccines a day were administered to McHenry County residents, up from 501 a day as of last Thursday, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Thursday saw 738 doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered to McHenry County residents, bringing the total number of doses administered in McHenry County to 363,060, the IDPH reported.

A total of 176,543 county residents, or an estimated 57.21% of McHenry County’s population, now are fully vaccinated, meaning they’ve received all doses recommended for the vaccine they were given.

Statewide, 15,203,716 vaccines have been administered, according to state data.

Across Illinois, 81% of those age 12 and older have received at least one dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, and 63.4% are fully vaccinated, the IDPH reported Friday. Those rates are 82.5% and 65% for people 18 and older and 96.8% and 78.9% for those 65 and older.

The number of new cases over the previous seven days hit 115.04 per 100,000 residents Sunday, the most recent day for which data is available, according to the McHenry County Department of Health’s school metrics dashboard. That was down from more than 145 cases reported Oct. 4 but the second day in a row the number rose.

Under the thresholds set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the incidence rate – measured as the total number of new cases over seven days per 100,000 residents – marks a “high” degree of transmission of COVID-19.

For spread to meet the less severe category “substantial,” the incidence rate would need to fall below 100 new cases over seven days per 100,000 residents and remain there for a week, according to the county’s health department.

Both the CDC and McHenry County health department use the incidence rate and positivity rate to categorize COVID-19 transmission. When the two metrics do not fall within the same transmission risk category, the higher one is chosen, according to the county health department.

McHenry County’s COVID-19 test positivity rate remained at 3% Tuesday, according to the McHenry County health department. The county has been within the low transmission range of zero percent to 4.9% since early September.

Region 9, which is made up of Lake and McHenry counties, remained at 2.3% Tuesday, according to the IDPH.

Intensive care unit availability across McHenry and Lake counties increased at 22% as of Thursday, the IDPH reported.

Twice this summer, the ICU care availability in the two-county region fell below 20%, a threshold previously used by the state during the COVID-19 pandemic as a trigger point for implementing more strict health mitigations on regions, something that hadn’t occurred during either last year’s fall peak of coronavirus cases or the more recent spring surge.

The number of people hospitalized in both counties fell to 82 Thursday. The region saw the number of patients hospitalized decrease or remain stable each of the past 10 days.

In McHenry County alone, 5.5% of medical and surgical beds and 25.5% of intensive care unit beds were available, according to the McHenry County health department. Hospitalizations have decreased or remained stable eight out of the past 10 days in McHenry County.

Statewide, the number of hospitalizations tied to COVID-19 dropped Thursday to 1,277, the IDPH reported. Of those hospitalized Thursday, 323 patients were in the ICU and 152 were on ventilators.

The IDPH reported 2,969 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 Friday. Another 27 deaths also were logged Friday, bringing the totals to 1,680,908 cases, 25,590 confirmed deaths and 2,824 probable deaths.

The McHenry County health department reported 92 new cases and no new deaths Friday, bringing the total number of cases in the county to 34,895, including 328 deaths and 32 deaths that likely were caused by COVID-19 but could not be confirmed.

Neighboring Lake County’s health department reported a total of 72,311 cases and 1,092 deaths as of Friday, and to the south, Kane County’s health department reported a total of 68,464 cases and 874 deaths as of Friday.

Among McHenry County ZIP codes, Crystal Lake (60014) has the highest number of COVID-19 cases with a total of 5,366 confirmed cases, according to county data. Woodstock (60098) follows with 3,982 cases.

The McHenry County health department reports ZIP code data only for parts 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) 3,758; Lake in the Hills (60156) 3,220; Huntley (60142) 2,634; Algonquin (60102) 2,523; Johnsburg and McHenry (60051) 2,399; Cary (60013) 2,393; Harvard (60033) 1,806; Marengo (60152) 1,416; Crystal Lake, Bull Valley and Prairie Grove (60012) 1,191; Wonder Lake (60097) 1,155; Spring Grove (60081) 899; Island Lake (60042) 496; Fox River Grove (60021) 453; Richmond (60071) 395; Hebron (60034) 214; Barrington (60010) 185; Union (60180) 160; and Ringwood and Wonder Lake (60072) 90.