IDPH: Only 3 counties at “high” COVID-19 risk; 135,000 new bivalent vaccines administered in past week

The Illinois Department of Public Health announced Friday that three counties in the state are considered “high” risk for COVID-19, a decrease of seventeen counties from a week ago. An additional 33 counties are at the “medium” risk level, a decrease of 13 from last week.

The counties listed at High Community Level are: Ford, Jefferson and Wayne.

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

Additionally, the IDPH reported Friday that more than 137,000 Illinoisans have received a dose of the new, updated COVID-19 vaccines in the past week, making for a total of 341,000 Illinois residents who have been boosted with the bivalent vaccine.

“Across Illinois we are seeing a large numbers of state residents taking action to protect themselves and their loved ones by seeking out the updated COVID-19 booster shots,” IDPH Director Dr. Sameer Vohra said in a news release. “This is an encouraging sign as we head into the fall season and face a potential increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.  Illinois is fortunate to have a significant supply of bivalent boosters. I strongly urge all that are eligible to contact their local pharmacies or medical providers to get protected as soon as possible – both from COVID-19 and the flu. These vaccines are especially important for those most vulnerable to severe illness, such as those individuals over 50, those with underlying medical conditions, and those who are immunocompromised.”

The IDPH reported over the past week, an average of more than 19,000 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.

The IDPH announced 2,210 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 12 additional deaths Friday.

As of late Thursday, Illinois had 1,069 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, the fewest since June 19. Of those, 147 were in intensive care units, and 40 were on ventilators.

For Thursday, the state administered 29,542 vaccines.

From the IDPH’s data dashboard:

Case rate per 100,000: 19.5 (down 0.3 from Thursday)

Percentage of ICU beds available: 19%

COVID-19-diagnosed hospital admissions (seven-day rolling average): 92 (same as Thursday)

Weekly deaths reported: 62 (down 12 from a week ago)

Illinois has seen 3,751,275 total cases of the virus, and 34,947 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 29,452,875 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed statewide, with 23,653,407 vaccines administered.

As of Friday, 8,365,238 Illinoisans have been fully vaccinated, or 65.66% of the population. Illinois has a population of 12,741,080 people.

CDC numbers:

Among Illinois residents 5 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 8,823,301 (74%)

At Least 1 Dose: 9,751,582 (81.8%)

Among Illinois residents 12 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 8,385,729 (77.4%)

At Least 1 Dose: 9,256,575 (85.4%)

Among Illinois residents 18 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 7,735,764 (78.5%)

At Least 1 Dose: 8,544,988 (86.7%)

Among Illinois residents 65 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 1,835,483 (89.8%)

At Least 1 Dose: 1,983,795 (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: 69.35%

Suburban Cook: 73.23%

Lake: 70.89%

McHenry: 66.26%

DuPage: 75.96%

Kane: 66.87%

Will: 67.14%

Kendall: 69.95%

La Salle: 58.71%

Grundy: 58.06%

DeKalb: 56.86%

Ogle: 57.24%

Lee: 59.14%

Whiteside: 52.14%

Bureau: 56.96%