Hospitalizations across Lake, McHenry counties fall for ninth straight day, IDPH reports

The level of COVID-19 transmission in McHenry County remained high Monday, the McHenry County Department of Health reported.

The McHenry County health department reported 4,453 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday but no additional deaths. That brings the total to 68,727, including 377 deaths and 36 deaths that likely were caused by COVID-19 but have not been confirmed.

The county has recorded two COVID-19 deaths so far in 2022.

The test positivity rate for the county, as measured by a seven-day rolling average, remained artificially high Saturday, dropping slightly to 35.6%, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

A backlog of data from a single lab provided to the IDPH Friday and Saturday contained cases dating back to Dec. 23, IDPH spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said Monday.

Of the 10,933 tests reported for Friday, 56.7% were positive, state data shows. That’s compared with Saturday when 3,022 tests were recorded, 15.1% of which were positive.

The region including both Lake and McHenry counties saw its test positivity rate decreased Saturday to 20.4%.

McHenry County’s incidence rate fell for the fifth day in a row, hitting 1,089.65 new cases over seven days per 100,000 residents as of Thursday, the last day for which data was reported, according to the McHenry County health department.

That is below the peak on Jan. 9, which was the highest the county had seen over the previous 250 days, the time period published by the county, but remains more than 10 times the threshold set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to indicate a high level of transmission within a community.

For transmission risk 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 the positivity rate would need to be below 10%, according to the McHenry County health department. Both metrics then would need to stay below those levels for a week.

COVID-19 hospitalizations fell for the ninth straight day across Lake and McHenry counties, the IDPH reported Tuesday.

The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in McHenry and Lake counties decreased to 323 Monday after a high for the pandemic of 407 on Jan. 15, the IDPH reported.

Hospitalizations, measured by a seven-day rolling average, decreased nine of the past 10 days in the two-county region, state data shows. It had been increasing every day since Dec. 26 before Jan. 14.

Hospital intensive care unit availability across McHenry and Lake counties remained at 14% Tuesday. It has been below the 20% threshold previously used by the state as a trigger point for imposing stricter health mitigations since Dec. 28.

In McHenry County alone, 5.8% of medical and surgical hospital beds remain available on average, according to the seven-day rolling mean reported Tuesday by the McHenry County health department. An average of 15.2% of ICU beds were available.

Hospitalizations for COVID-19-like illness decreased nine of the past 10 days in the county as of Tuesday.

Statewide, the number of hospitalizations tied to COVID-19 decreased Tuesday to 5,183, the IDPH reported. Of those hospitalized, 907 patients were in the ICU and 542 were on ventilators.

An additional 695 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered to McHenry County residents Monday, according to the IDPH, bringing the total number administered locally to 488,624. The state reported that 93,535 booster shots were administered in McHenry County.

A total of 193,385 county residents, or an estimated 62.67% of McHenry County’s population, now are fully vaccinated, meaning they’ve received all doses recommended for the vaccine they were given.

Statewide, 20,305,739 vaccines have been administered, according to state data.

Across Illinois, 79.6% of those age 5 and older have received at least one dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, and 69.9% are fully vaccinated, the IDPH reported Tuesday. Those rates are 83.8% and 74.1% for those age 12 and older, 85.3% and 75.5% for people 18 and older, and 95% and 87.1% for those 65 and older, respectively.

Statewide, the IDPH tallied 13,706 total new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. Another 121 deaths also were logged, bringing the totals to 2,851,567 cases, 30,276 confirmed deaths and 3,666 probable deaths.

Neighboring Lake County’s health department reported a total of 111,988 cases and 1,207 deaths through Saturday. To the south, Kane County’s health department reported 111,402 cases and 1,000 deaths as of Friday.

Among McHenry County ZIP codes, Crystal Lake (60014) has the highest number of COVID-19 cases with a total of 11,143 confirmed, according to county data. McHenry (60050) follows with 7,795.

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: Woodstock (60098) 7,153 cases; Lake in the Hills (60156) 6,509; Huntley (60142) 5,429; Cary (60013) 5,219; Algonquin (60102) 4,848; Johnsburg and McHenry (60051) 4,284; Harvard (60033) 3,417; Marengo (60152) 2,502; Wonder Lake (60097) 2,447; Crystal Lake, Bull Valley and Prairie Grove (60012) 2,389; Spring Grove (60081) 1,388; Fox River Grove (60021) 1,046; Island Lake (60042) 882; Richmond (60071) 648; Hebron (60034) 381; Barrington (60010) 286; Union (60180) 261; and Ringwood and Wonder Lake (60072) 173.