La Salle County coronavirus update: Two COVID-related deaths as county continues to improve positivity rates

A La Salle County man in his 80s and a woman in her 90s died from complications related to COVID-19, increasing the number of COVID-related deaths to 176 countywide since the beginning of the pandemic.

The county's total increased by one Monday, because health officials had discovered an error in calculating its total.

With 74 new cases announced Monday and 103 individuals who previously tested positive removed from isolation, the number of active cases countywide decreased to 2,818. There have been 7,521 cases since the start of the virus, and of those, 4,527 individuals have been removed from isolation.

As of Saturday, the latest data available from the Illinois Department of Public Health, 6.4% of 1,799 La Salle County residents who took a coronavirus test were positive with the virus, making it six consecutive days of decreasing COVID-19 rates. From Dec. 5 to Dec. 11, La Salle County had a positivity rate of 9.6%, its lowest this month, decreasing from as high as 14.8%.

The IDPH's ZIP code data report (which sometimes lags behind county numbers), with increases since Sunday, shows:

• Ottawa up 18 to 1,547

• Peru up 14 to 915

• Streator, also in Livingston County, up 11 to 1,114

• La Salle up nine to 791

• Sandwich, also in DeKalb County, up six to 756

• Earlville up five to 149

• Mendota up four to 839

• Somonauk, also in DeKalb County, up four to 198

• Sheridan up three to 380 (114 active inmates at Sheridan Correctional Center; 195 total)

• Utica up two to 126

• Tonica up two to 58

• Oglesby up one to 349

• Leland up one to 105

• Lostant up one to 46

• Millington, also in Kendall County, up one to 34

• Dana up one to 13

• Marseilles remains at 512

• Seneca remains at 188

• Wenona, also in Marshall County, down one to 66

• Grand Ridge remains at 60

• Serena remains at 32

• Ransom remains at 23

• Rutland remains at 17

• Cedar Point remains at 15

• Troy Grove remains at 7