Health administrator: COVID-19 conditions improving in Ogle County

OREGON - Ogle County no longer carries the highest COVID-19 positivity rate in the region, and cases are continuing to decline as the health department focuses on vaccinating community members.

Health department Administrator Kyle Auman said the county’s positivity rate has dropped to 4.3%, and cases are falling in both the county and the region. Region 1 has a positivity rate of 3.7%.

“We’re happy with these numbers starting to improve,” he told the Ogle County Board Tuesday.

They’re working with the state to get more doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which was recently approved for children 12 and older, as their supply has been limited. Hopefully the department will receive more doses next week to help vaccinate the younger population, he said.

Auman said they are also working with all the school districts to promote rapid antigen testing as well as Shield saliva testing.

“They are great tools to keep incidents and outbreaks out of our schools,” he said.

Rapid antigen testing will begin soon for county employees as well.

As of Tuesday, Ogle County has administered 35,862 vaccine doses, with 17,102 people (33.58%) fully vaccinated.

“We’re going to continue to monitor the situation, and we’re seeing some positive results in a lot due to vaccinations,” he said.

The County Board also accepted the resignation of board member Marty Typer and will be accepting applications and conducting interviews to fill his District 5 seat.

In other business, the board plans to sell property at Sixth and Jefferson streets, which was originally going to be used for additional parking.