IDPH: 20 counties at ‘high’ risk for COVID-19; bivalent booster shot demand is strong

The Illinois Department of Public Health announced Friday that 20 counties in the state are considered “high” risk for COVID-19, a decrease of eight counties from a week ago. An additional 46 counties are at the “medium” risk level, an increase of six from last week.

The counties listed at High Community Level are: Champaign, Clay, Coles, DeKalb, Douglas, Edgar, Fayette, Ford, Franklin, Fulton, Henderson, Jackson, Johnson, Perry, Richland, Scott, Stephenson, Vermilion, Wabash and Williamson.

The CDC recommends wearing a well-fitting mask indoors in public, regardless of vaccination status in high-risk counties.

Additionally, the IDPH reported Friday about 188,800 residents have already received the bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine since they were authorized for use in early September.

The IDPH reported over the past week, an average of more than 21,000 doses of the new bivalent vaccines have been administered across the state each day. This is more than double the daily average for all vaccinations for most of the summer.

“It is very encouraging to see Illinois residents turning out in such strong numbers to take advantage of the updated bivalent booster shots that are now available,” IDPH Director Dr. Sameer Vohra said in a news release. “These new booster shots – designed specifically to offer extra protection from the dominant Omicron strain of the virus - are the latest, most advanced tool to protect Illinois residents from experiencing the worst effects of COVID-19. It’s important for everyone who is eligible to get up to date on vaccines and boosters as soon as possible, before a potential fall and winter surge leads to increased infections.”

The IDPH announced 2,492 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 10 additional deaths Friday.

As of late Thursday, Illinois had 1,153 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, the fewest since July 2. Of those, 145 were in intensive care units, and 49 were on ventilators.

For Thursday, the state administered 29,536 vaccines.

From the IDPH’s data dashboard:

Case rate per 100,000: 19.7 (down 0.9 from Thursday, lowest since April)

Percentage of ICU beds available: 19%

COVID-19-diagnosed hospital admissions (seven-day rolling average): 112 (down 5 from Thursday)

Weekly deaths reported: 74 (up 10 from a week ago)

Illinois has seen 3,733,902 total cases of the virus, and 34,885 people have died.

County-by-county update: As of mid-April, the IDPH will provide a county-by-county update focusing on the case rate per 100,000 people, the percentage of ICU beds available, a rolling seven-day average of COVID-19-diagnosed hospital admissions and weekly deaths.

The definition of a COVID-19-diagnosed hospital admission is as follows: the seven-day average of daily number of hospital admissions given a diagnosis of COVID-19 as measured using the Illinois Syndromic Surveillance System.

Illinois collects all emergency department and inpatient visits through syndromic surveillance from all acute care hospitals in Illinois in near-real time. Data is presented with a three-day lag to allow time for diagnosis to be reported.

At the county level, a visit is counted by where the patient resides. A patient with multiple visits will be counted for each visit. Admissions may not be because of COVID-19 as the primary cause. Syndromic surveillance data is not the same source used by the CDC to report COVID-19 hospital admissions data.

Vaccine update: As of Friday, the IDPH reported a total of 29,407,575 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed statewide, with 23,479,530 vaccines administered.

As of Friday, 8,359,680 Illinoisans have been fully vaccinated, or 65.61% of the population. Illinois has a population of 12,741,080 people.

CDC numbers:

Among Illinois residents 5 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 8,810,915 (73.9%)

At Least 1 Dose: 9,733,711 (81.6%)

Among Illinois residents 12 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 8,374,608 (77.3%)

At Least 1 Dose: 9,239,857 (85.3%)

Among Illinois residents 18 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 7,725,307 (78.4%)

At Least 1 Dose: 8,529,109 (86.6%)

Among Illinois residents 65 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 1,832,553 (89.7%)

At Least 1 Dose: 1,979,678 (95%)

There can be as much as a 72-hour delay in reporting from health care providers on vaccines administered.

In northern Illinois, here is the percentage of the population fully vaccinated by county:

Chicago: 69.31%

Suburban Cook: 73.17%

Lake: 70.82%

McHenry: 66.23%

DuPage: 75.90%

Kane: 66.83%

Will: 67.10%

Kendall: 69.91%

La Salle: 58.67%

Grundy: 58.04%

DeKalb: 56.85%

Ogle: 57.22%

Lee: 59.12%

Whiteside: 52.12%

Bureau: 56.94%