Kendall County Remains Within State Coronavirus Guidelines: IDPH

Abhinanda Datta
·3 min read

KENDALL COUNTY, IL — Public health officials are warning residents that there are signs of significant increases in coronavirus transmission in Illinois, with data about COVID-19 rates and hospitalizations heading the wrong direction in each of the state's emergency medical services regions. However, in the region to which Kendall County belongs, certain metrics have remained within state guidelines.

This comes just over two weeks after Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a new mitigation plan that divided the state into 11 regions. The administration uses indicators including positivity rates, hospital admissions, new cases, clusters and deaths to assess the level of COVID-19 activity in each region.

Any region that sustains an 8 percent positivity rate for three days in a row or sees an increase in positivity rates and simultaneous decrease in hospital capacity will need to implement additional community mitigation interventions, the Illinois Department of Public Health website states.

In Region 2 — which is composed of Bureau, Fulton, Grundy, Henderson, Henry, Kendall, Knox, La Salle, Livingston, Marshall, McDonough, McLean, Mercer, Peoria, Putnam, Rock Island, Stark, Tazewell, Warren, and Woodford counties — an average of 7 people are admitted to the hospital every day, with increases on two of the last 10 days where regional metrics are available from the IDPH.

There are 44 percent of surgical beds available and 48 percent of ICU beds across the 20-county region. As of data received Aug. 5, 422 out of 501 ventilators are available. Over the last 10 days, hospital admission has only increased on three days.

As per the IDPH metrics:

  • The target is to have fewer than 7 days in the last 10 with a daily increase in the average number of hospital admissions.

  • The target is to have at least 20 percent of medical, surgical and ICU beds available.

Kendall County by itself is also doing well. As of July 31, the number of hospital admissions, availability of ICU beds and the number of tests performed have been on target. However, the county is still showing a high rate of test positivity with 6.8 percent.

ReAnn VanGundy, administrator of the Kendall County Health Department told Patch that an "increase in testing, perhaps complacency and risky behavior patterns amongst residents," could be a reason for the high positivity rate.

" From what we know, we have communal spread and not increased rates due to outbreaks," she said.

She said that in order to contain the spread, the health officials are stressing the importance of the 3 Ws: wearing a mask, watching your distance and washing your hands. Continued contact tracing and increased community education based on guidance from CDC is another way to quell the outbreak.

"Please continue to believe that anywhere you go or anything you touch outside of your home raises your risk for exposure to COVID-19," VanGundy said.

Kendall County currently has 1,362 cases with 904 in recovery and 25 deaths. The latest coronavirus-induced death was reported on Tuesday. According to a release from the Kendall County Health Department, the deceased was a male in in his 70s "that suffered from additional health complexities."

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This article originally appeared on the Oswego Patch