McHenry County reports no new COVID-19 deaths in past week, lowers to ‘medium’ spread

The community transmission level of COVID-19 fell to “medium” in McHenry County this week for the first time in about a month, according to the county health department.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the “medium” level of community transmission comes from the county seeing less than 200 cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days.

The second threshold to be considered “high” is between 10 and 19.9 people being admitted to the hospital over a seven-day period, according to the CDC.

The third metric, the percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, still was less than 10%, as measured by a seven-day average, according to the CDC.

As of Friday, McHenry County had seen 88,064 total COVID-19 cases, including 489 confirmed deaths and 48 deaths where COVID-19 likely was the cause but was not confirmed, the McHenry County Department of Health reported. No additional deaths were reported in the past week.

The county saw 189.14 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days as of Aug. 7, down slightly from 230.08 a week before, according to the incidence rate reported by the county health department.

Most neighboring counties were at the “high” community level, except for Boone and Cook counties. A total of 42 counties are reporting high spread levels. Twelve Illinois counties remain at the “low” level.

The rate of youth cases from newborns to 17-year-olds rose in two of three age groups in McHenry County over the past week, Illinois Department of Public Health data shows.

Cases among children 5 to 11 increased to 3.3 new cases each day from 2.3 cases the week before, according to the seven-day rolling average.

Newborns to 4-year-olds in McHenry County increased, with 4.2 new cases a day, up from four new cases the previous week.

The only group of the three whose rate of COVID-19 declined was among 12- to 17-year-olds, who were at two new cases each day, compared with 3.4 the week before.

Countywide COVID-19 hospital admissions was at three new patients a day as of Tuesday, according to the seven-day rolling averages reported by the IDPH.

Hospital intensive care unit availability across McHenry and Lake counties was at 22% as of Thursday, up from 20% the previous week, according to the seven-day average the IDPH reported.

Across Illinois, the number of new hospital admissions tied to COVID-19 was 142 daily as of Tuesday, up slightly from 136 the week before, according to the seven-day rolling daily average reported by the IDPH. Of the 1,471 people hospitalized for COVID-19, 181 were in the ICU and 67 were on ventilators as of Thursday.

An additional 1,192 vaccines were administered in McHenry County in the past week, bringing the total to 551,333 in the county, the IDPH reported. The state reported that 113,388 booster shots have been administered in the county.

A total of 203,664, or an estimated 66% of McHenry County’s population, now are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, meaning they’ve received all doses recommended for the vaccine they were given.

Across Illinois, 81.4% of those age 5 and older have received at least one dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, and 73.7% are fully vaccinated, the IDPH reported Friday. Those rates are 85.1% and 77.1% for those age 12 and older, 86.4% and 78.3% for people age 18 and older, and 95% and 89.6% for those 65 and older, respectively.

Illinois’ daily case rate stood at 29.7 new cases per 100,000 people, according to the seven-day rolling average reported Friday, with 123 deaths reported in the past week, more than doubling from the week before. Illinois now has seen 3,620,877 COVID-19 cases, 34,539 confirmed deaths and 4,569 deaths where COVID-19 was the probable cause but was not confirmed.

Neighboring Lake County’s health department reported a total of 153,430 cases and 1,422 deaths through Thursday. To the south, Kane County has seen 147,998 cases and 1,151 deaths as of Friday, according to its health department.

Among McHenry County ZIP codes, Crystal Lake (60014) has the highest total number of COVID-19 cases over the course of the pandemic with a total of 14,534 confirmed, according to county data. McHenry (60050) follows with 10,011.

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: Woodstock (60098) 9,078 cases; Lake in the Hills (60156) 8,647; Huntley (60142) 7,098; Cary (60013) 6,712; Algonquin (60102) 6,287; Johnsburg and McHenry (60051) 5,331; Harvard (60033) 4,092; Crystal Lake, Bull Valley and Prairie Grove (60012) 3,186; Marengo (60152) 3,076; Wonder Lake (60097) 3,029; Spring Grove (60081) 1,785; Fox River Grove (60021) 1,343; Island Lake (60042) 1,134; Richmond (60071) 861; Hebron (60034) 478; Barrington (60010) 411; Union (60180) 333; and Ringwood and Wonder Lake (60072) 225.