Another Willow Crest resident dies from COVID-19; DeKalb County Rehab back in outbreak mode

After more than a week of no COVID-19 activity reported in any long-term care facilities, another resident of a Sandwich facility died Tuesday, and a DeKalb facility is back in outbreak mode, while 17 more cases were reported countywide, according to the DeKalb County Health Department.

A resident of Willow Crest Nursing Pavilion in Sandwich, a woman in her 90s, died on Tuesday from the novel coronavirus, the 13th death reported at the nursing center and 36th in the county. Willow Crest now has the highest death toll reported in any long-term care facility in DeKalb County.

DeKalb County Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, which had been out of outbreak mode since late July, reported two cases among staff on Tuesday, reappearing on the county website for the first time in over a month.

Willow Crest also reported two new cases, bringing its total to 59 -- 37 among residents and 22 among staff. It was the first new case since early August at the facility.

In all, the county reported 17 new cases on Tuesday, bringing the total to 1,177. Among the new cases, two were under 20, 11 were in their 20s, three in their 30s, and one in their 50s.

In total, there have been reported 151 cases among residents under 20, 328 in their 20s, 185 in their 30s, 150 in their 40s, 145 in their 50s, 85 in their 60s, 63 in their 70s and 70 in their 80s or older.

According to county data, the city of DeKalb reports between 556 to 560 cases. There are 166 to 170 cases in Sycamore; 141 to 145 in Sandwich; 96 to 100 cases in Genoa; 61 to 65 cases in Cortland; 26 to 30 in Hinckley; 21 to 25 cases in Kirkland and Kingston, 16 to 20 in Somonauk and Malta; 11 to 15 in Waterman; and six to 10 in Shabbona. Esmond, Earlville and Maple Park each report one to five cases.

The Illinois Department of Public Health lists cases and tests performed by ZIP code, while the county health department lists cases by municipality. Numbers vary between state and health departments because of data lags.

The 60115 ZIP code, including DeKalb, had 533 cases reported and 9,216 tests administered (a positivity rate of 5.8%); the 60178 ZIP code, including Sycamore, had 174 cases and 4,048 tests (4.3%); the 60548 ZIP code, including Sandwich, had 3,315 tests and 207 cases (6.2%); the 60112 ZIP code, including Cortland, had 58 cases and 885 tests (6.6%); the 60135 ZIP code, including Genoa, had 91 cases and 1,391 tests (6.5%); the 60145 ZIP code, including Kingston, had 23 cases and 357 tests (6.4%) and the 60146 ZIP code, including Kirkland, had 27 cases and 476 tests (5.7%).

In total, IDPH reported 236.515 people in Illinois have tested positive for COVID-19, while 8,064 people have died statewide. As of Tuesday, 4,087,122 tests have been performed. The site also lists statewide recovery rates, calculated by recovered cases divided by the sum of recovered cases and dead cases. The statewide recovery remained at 95%.

According to the weekly testing and recovery data released by the county on Friday, 28 more residents recovered from the virus last week, leaving 279 cases in the recovery period.

As of Friday, there have been 24,392 tests administered locally. That would be a 4.7% positivity rate according to the county data (total cases divided by positive and negative tests), but a new metric on the county site lists the positivity rate (based on IDPH metrics website) at 5.3%.