Three more McHenry County schools report outbreaks, according to IDPH

Three McHenry County schools reported COVID-19 outbreaks in the past week, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The state health department updates its information on school outbreaks weekly on Fridays.

Huntley’s Leggee Elementary School had eight positive cases confirmed in one classroom relating to the outbreak, Huntley School District 158 spokesperson Alex LeMoine said in an email.

Prairie Grove Elementary School, part of Prairie Grove School District 46, had an outbreak of five students stemming from the bus, according to the IDPH.

An outbreak of fewer than five cases at First United Methodist Church Preschool was also identified by the Illinois Department of Public Health, though the report did not indicate which town the preschool is located in. An attempt to reach a department spokeswoman Friday was not successful.

Families of students in Leggee Elementary received multiple communications about the outbreak, and District 158 also notified all students who were deemed a “close contact” about quarantine options, LeMoine said.

“All families at Leggee Elementary were also notified of the outbreak,” she said.

District 46 Superintendent John Bute said the district notified all of the students and parents connected each outbreak case.

At Prairie Grove, the district is “taking every possible mitigation it can on school buses,” such as requiring masks per the IDPH’s guidance; having a designated seating chart; and keeping the windows open when weather permits to help with airflow, Bute said.

However, physical distancing on a bus is hard, he said.

“In order to keep students between 6 feet apart on a bus, you’re going to put about 12 kids on a bus. That’s not practical or realistic,” Bute said. “We do have two or three students per seats on the bus and they are side by side, and if one of them does become COVID positive, there will be a ripple effect of students who are going to be considered close contacts.”

The level of COVID-19 transmission in McHenry County remains high as the average number of new cases continues to climb.

The incidence rate – measured as the number of new cases over seven days – reached 197.26 per 100,000 residents on Sunday, the last date for which data is available, according to county health department data. The incidence rate has not been that high in the last 250 days, which is the entire period of time published by the county health department on its dashboard.

For spread to meet the less severe category “substantial,” the incidence rate would need to fall below 100 new cases over seven days per 100,000 residents and remain there for a week, according to the health department.

Both the CDC and McHenry County health department use the incidence rate and positivity rate to categorize COVID-19 transmission. When the two metrics do not fall within the same transmission risk category, the higher one is chosen, according to the county health department.

McHenry County’s positivity rate as is 3.9% as of Tuesday, according to data from the McHenry County Department of Health. It’s been creeping upwards the past few days since dropping to 2.5% in late October.

The county has been within the low transmission range of zero percent to 4.9% since early September, but the county’s positivity rate has been increasing over the last two weeks.

Region 9, which is made up of Lake and McHenry counties, saw its positivity rate rise increased to 3.1% Tuesday, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The average number of people hospitalized because of COVID-19 in both counties increased each of the last three days, hitting 69 Thursday, the IDPH reported. The region saw the number of patients hospitalized decrease or remain stable seven of the past 10 days.

Intensive care unit availability across McHenry and Lake counties remained at 22% Thursday, the IDPH reported.

Twice during the summer the ICU care availability in the two-county region fell below 20%, a threshold previously used by the state during the COVID-19 pandemic as a trigger point for implementing more strict health mitigations on regions. This is something that hadn’t occurred during either last year’s fall peak of COVID-19 cases or the more recent spring surge.

In McHenry County alone, 4.2% of medical and surgical beds and 32.5% of intensive care unit beds were available, according to the seven-day rolling average reported by the local health department. Hospitalizations have decreased or remained stable eight of the past 10 days in the county.

Statewide, the number of hospitalizations tied to COVID-19 rose increased Thursday to 1,553, the IDPH reported. Of those hospitalized Thursday, 307 patients were in the ICU and 140 were on ventilators.

An additional 1,490 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered to McHenry County residents Wednesday and another 1,526 Wednesday, bringing the total number administered locally to 390,084, the IDPH reported Friday after not reporting data Thursday due to Veterans Day. The state reported 29,511 booster shots had been administered in McHenry County.

A total of 178,561 county residents, or an estimated 57.87% of McHenry County’s population, now are fully vaccinated, meaning they’ve received all doses recommended for the vaccine they were given.

Statewide, 16,256,855 vaccines have been administered, according to state data.

Across Illinois, 77.7% of those age 12 and older have received at least one dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, and 71.3% are fully vaccinated, the IDPH reported Friday. Those rates are 79.3% and 72.8% for people 18 and older and 93.8% and 86.6% for those 65 and older, respectively.

The IDPH has reported 4,144 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 Thursday and an additional 3,808 Friday. Another 28 deaths also were logged Thursday and 21 Friday, bringing the totals to 1,735,586 cases, 26,077 confirmed deaths and 2,909 probable deaths.

The McHenry County Department of Health also did not update its COVID-19 dashboard Thursday because of Veteran’s Day but resumed doing so Friday.

An additional 297 COVID-19 cases in the county were reported over those two days by the McHenry County Department of Health on Friday, bringing the total to 36,619 cases in McHenry County, including 336 deaths and 32 deaths that likely were caused by COVID-19 but have not been confirmed. No new deaths were reported over the two-day period.

Neighboring Lake County’s health department reported a total of 74,516 cases and 1,102 deaths in Lake County on Friday and to the south, Kane County’s health department reported a total of 70,440 cases and 896 deaths Friday.

Among McHenry County ZIP codes, Crystal Lake (60014) has the highest number of COVID-19 cases with a total of 5,634 confirmed cases, according to county data. Woodstock (60098) follows with 4,162 cases.

The McHenry County health department reports ZIP code data only for parts within McHenry County, a department spokeswoman said. Any discrepancies between county and IDPH numbers likely are because of the data’s provisional nature and because each health department finalizes its data at different times, she said.

The following is the rest of the local breakdown of cases by ZIP code: McHenry (60050) 3,969; Lake in the Hills (60156) 3,375; Huntley (60142) 2,779; Algonquin (60102) 2,641; Cary (60013) 2,528; Johnsburg and McHenry (60051) 2,490; Harvard (60033) 1,874; Marengo (60152) 1,476; Crystal Lake, Bull Valley and Prairie Grove (60012) 1,250; Wonder Lake (60097) 1,226; Spring Grove (60081) 938; Island Lake (60042) 507; Fox River Grove (60021) 488; Richmond (60071) 416; Hebron (60034) 224; Barrington (60010) 195; Union (60180) 169; and Ringwood and Wonder Lake (60072) 107.