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CHICAGO — The Illinois Department of Public Health reported Friday that 63 of the state’s 102 counties — including Ford County — are at high levels for community transmission of COVID-19, as rated by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
The number is up from 46 last week.
“As we enter December and the weather continues to cool, Illinois is starting to see an expected increase in COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses like the flu,” said IDPH Director Dr. Sameer Vohra. “Please continue to take all preventive measures to protect yourself, your family and friends, especially very young children and individuals over the age of 65 who are most vulnerable to serious consequences. These effective strategies include testing for COVID-19, especially if visiting someone at risk for chronic illness; improved ventilation; good hand hygiene; stay home if sick; and getting up to date on both the COVID-19 bivalent booster and the flu shot.”
Ford County was among 51 counties listed at a medium level on Friday, joining neighboring counties Champaign, McLean and Vermilion. Twelve others are listed at high level.
In Central Illinois, only Logan and Christian counties ranked high. Iroquois and Livingston counties are among the 59 listed as low.
Two weeks earlier, only 21 counties were listed at the high level — and Ford County was not among them. Only Winnebago County in north-central Illinois was rated high, while 20 others — none in East Central Illinois — were rated moderate.
To determine a county’s level of community transmission as low, moderate or high, the CDC looks at three metrics: new COVID-19 hospital admissions and new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 population over the past seven days, and the seven-day average percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients.
At moderate levels, elderly or immunocompromised people are advised to wear masks in public places indoors and be sure to get up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines or get their boosters, if eligible.
On Friday, the state health department announced 20,495 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in Illinois within the past week, including 57 deaths related to COVID-19. Since the pandemic began, there have been 3,885,397 cases in Illinois, including 35,494 deaths related to COVID-19.
As of Thursday evening, 1,509 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 161 are in the intensive-care unit and 45 are on ventilators. The initial seven-day statewide case rate was 161 cases per 100,000 Illinoisans.
A total of 25,393,251 vaccines were administered in Illinois on Friday. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily was 13,865 doses, including the bivalent booster and first dose. In the past week, 97,052 doses were reported administered in Illinois.
More than 1.9 million Illinoisans have received a dose of the new bivalent vaccines since they were approved for use in early September. The CDC approved two new bivalent booster vaccines on September 2 that include an mRNA component of the original strain to provide an immune response that broadly protects against COVID-19 and an additional mRNA component common between the omicron variant BA .4 and BA .5 lines to provide better protection against COVID-19 caused by the Omicron variant. Updated boosters are available at pharmacies, hospitals and other healthcare providers.
Of the total Illinois population, more than 78 percent have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine; more than 70 percent have completed their primary series of COVID-19 vaccines; and more than 16 percent of the vaccinated population received a bivalent booster dose, according to CDC data.
The federal government has established a website — www.covid.gov — that provides an all-purpose toolkit with information on how to obtain masks, treatment, vaccines and testing resources.
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