Kane County is one of eight counties in Illinois that shows warning signs of an increased risk of COVID-19.
That’s according to new Illinois Department of Public Health risk metrics published on its statistics website COVID-19, dph.illinois.gov/countymetrics.
The new tracking site went live on Friday, the same day that Illinois moved to Phase 4 of the governor’s reopening plan, which saw restaurants allow a limited number of diners to re-enter, reopen gyms and Loosen restrictions for meetings of 50 or less.
The state also announced 39 more deaths from COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the number of deaths from respiratory disease to 6,847. Another 857 residents also tested positive, meaning the disease has now infected 140,291 people in Illinois, according to the IDPH.
The new county risk tracking site is just the latest data portal IDPH has launched since the outbreak began. It shows the weekly average of new cases for each county, the number of deaths, the positivity rates of the tests, the number of tests carried out, the visits to the emergency room, hospitalizations, the percentage of new cases that are part of a group and the number of beds available in the intensive care unit.
Kane County averaged 58 new cases per 100,000 residents between June 14-20. Anything above 50 cases per 100,000 residents triggers the warning, according to the website. The least populated counties are measured by the growth of cases during the week. The goal is fewer than 10 new cases for the week at those locations, according to the IDPH site.
Kane County also shows that 15.8% of the cases for that week came from cluster events. That could be an outbreak in a group housing facility like a nursing home or jail, or a party where people were exposed. Group-linked cases are 3% in Chicago, 3.9% in Cook suburbs, 4.1% in DuPage, 5.6% in Lake, 7.9% in McHenry, and 2.6% in Will counties.
“This metric is used for context to understand large increases in cases,” according to the explanation on the IDPH website. “It is also an indicator of successful case investigation to a known source. This is not a metric used to trigger a county warning.”
Kane County was blank in six other categories. Chicago and the suburbs of Cook, DuPage, Lake, McHenry and Will counties were targets in all categories.
Outside the Chicago area, Boone, Cass, Kankakee, St. Clair and Union counties are also averaging more than 50 new cases per 100,000 residents, according to the site. In Cass and Wabash counties, more than 10% of the COVID-19 tests also had positive results during the week. Morgan County received a warning because the number of deaths increased from the previous week’s total. IDPH said the warnings should help guide residents’ decisions to visit those counties.
Meanwhile, the state is experiencing a slight increase in its seven-day moving average infection rate. On Tuesday, the state showed that an average of 2.4% of those who were tested in the past seven days were positive for the virus. On Friday, 2.7% of people who took tests in the past seven days were diagnosed with an infection. That is still well below the threshold that would require the state to return to a more restrictive phase, but it’s notable because the state moved to Phase 3 less than a month ago and the infection rate had declined until three days ago.
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