Kendall County COVID-19 Cases, Positivity Rate On Steep Decline

OSWEGO, IL — In a week in which Illinois health officials suggested that the state may have surpassed the peak of COVID-19 omicron cases, Kendall County has also seen a steep drop in both new positive cases and its positivity rate.

The Kendall County Health Department announced 1,482 new cases on Thursday, which is more than a 50 percent drop from the previous week when 3,163 county residents had tested positive.

While the health department announced nine new COVID-19 related deaths, the county’s positivity rate stood at 14.1 percent, which also represents a significant improvement from the 25.3 percent positivity rate county health officials announced for the week previous.

With the nine new deaths, 139 county residents have died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, data shows.

The new numbers come at a time when Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he remains "cautiously optimistic"that the state has seen the worst of cases associated with the omicron variant.

Pritzker and Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike both expressed cautious optimism Wednesday as they announced the state had recorded a full week of daily declines in the number of hospitalized people with COVID-19.

But the governor said Illinois health care systems remain under "immense strain." As of late Tuesday night, more than 6,500 people with COVID-19 occupied hospital beds statewide, down 873 from last week's peak.

"We have lost so many people in recent weeks. Since the beginning of January alone, over 1,500 of our state's residents died from the virus," Pritzker said at a news conference in Chicago. "Despite the recent indications of fewer new infections and fewer new hospital admissions ahead, it breaks my heart to know that in the coming weeks, hundreds more may die, among the thousands that are already seriously ill from COVID."

This article originally appeared on the Oswego Patch