First COVID-19 death at DeKalb’s Oak Crest Retirement Center; 16 new local cases Wednesday

Another DeKalb County resident died due to complications from the novel coronavirus, according to the DeKalb County Health Department, which on Wednesday reported 16 new cases and the first death in a resident of Oak Crest-DeKalb Area Retirement Center.

Total cases in the county rose to 1,682 and the death toll rose to 39 after the death of a man in his 90s who lived at Oak Crest. Willow Crest Nursing Pavilion in Sandwich also reported its 67th case, the 26th in a staff member. DeKalb County Rehabilitation and Nursing Center remained at eight cases, Oak Crest remained at nine and Prairie Crossing Living and Rehabilitation Center in Shabbona, which reported its first cases Tuesday, remained at three.

Region 1, which includes DeKalb, Sauk Valley and Rockford, officially passed the threshold for mitigations Wednesday, recording a third straight day with a seven-day rolling positivity average of over 8%, hitting 8.4%.

According to the Illinois Public Health Department’s daily county testing data, which is on a three-day lag, DeKalb County had a daily positivity rate of 4.2% on Sunday, down from 12.2% the day before. The rolling positivity rate dropped to 6.9%.

New cases included three in patients under 20, two in their 20s, three in their 30s, four in their 40s, one in their 50s, two in their 70s and one in their 80s.

In total, 283 cases have been reported among residents younger than 20, 510 in their 20s, 224 in their 30s, 214 in their 40s, 177 in their 50s, 109 in their 60s, 77 in their 70s and 88 in their 80s or older.

According to county data, the city of DeKalb reports between 886 and 890 cases. There are between 216 and 220 cases in Sycamore; 171 and 175 in Sandwich; 126 and 130 cases in Genoa; 76 and 80 cases in Cortland; 31 and 35 in Hinckley; 26 and 30 in Kingston and Kirkland; 21 and 25 cases in Malta and Somonauk; and 11 and 15 in Waterman, Maple Park and Shabbona. Esmond, Leland and Earlville each report between one and five cases.

Cases listed on the county site are for those only occurring within the county; for instance, the Maple Park numbers only count residents who reside in DeKalb County.

The IDPH 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 843 cases reported and 14,693 tests administered (a positivity rate of 5.7%); the 60178 ZIP code, including Sycamore, had 223 cases and 5,734 tests (3.9%); the 60548 ZIP code, including Sandwich, had 4,066 tests and 248 cases (6.1%); the 60112 ZIP code, including Cortland, had 79 cases and 1,294 tests (6.1%); the 60135 ZIP code, including Genoa, had 121 cases and 1,942 tests (6.2%); the 60145 ZIP code, including Kingston, had 27 cases and 488 tests (5.5%); the 60146 ZIP code, including Kirkland, had 35 cases and 697 tests (5.0%); the 60520 ZIP code, including Hinckley, had 31 cases and 696 tests (4.6%); the 60550 ZIP code, including Shabbona, had 15 cases and 601 tests (2.5%); the 60151 ZIP code, including parts of Maple Park in both DeKalb and Kane counties, had 45 cases and 981 tests (4.6%); and the 60556 ZIP code, including Waterman, had 13 cases and 415 tests (3.1%).

The IDPH reported 293,274 people in Illinois have tested positive for COVID-19, while 8,672 people have died statewide. The number of tests performed rose to 5,624,822. The site also lists statewide recovery rates, calculated by recovered cases divided by the sum of recovered cases and dead cases. The statewide recovery rate remained at 96%.

The county released its weekly testing and recovery data on Friday, with 1,078 total recovered since the pandemic began locally. A total of 33,814 tests have been conducted on residents.