Sangamon County health department reports four new COVID-related deaths, monthly total 20

The Sangamon County Department of Public Health reported four COVID-19 related deaths Wednesday, putting the total at 20 for January. Later Wednesday, Gov. JB Pritzker he was "cautiously optimistic" that the most recent COVID surge has peaked.

The four deaths in the county occurred from Friday to Sunday.

A lag time because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Monday was the reason the deaths weren't reported earlier, said Sangamon County spokesman Jeff Wilhite.

There was one additional death reported in Menard County on Monday. The SCDPH makes reports for Menard County.

See also: Springfield School District 186 board members confident in schools' COVID precautions

Pritzker said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the recent surge in COVID-19 cases spurred by the omicron variant has peaked, but he cautioned that another variant could appear at any time and continued to urge people to get vaccinated and wear face coverings when in public.

“Over the last two years, I've said over and over that you don't know when a surge has reached its peak until you're on the other side of it,” Pritzker said during a news conference in Chicago.

The recent deaths in Sangamon County could push it toward one of the highest monthly totals since the surge in September when 27 deaths were reported.

There were 22 deaths in December 2021.

The highest monthly deaths reported before that were 60 in December 2020, 43 in January 2021 and 35 in November 2020, according to the SCDPH.

Those who recently died in Sangamon County include a male in his 80s and a female in her 80s, who were both vaccinated and had received the booster; a male in his 60s who was vaccinated and a female in her 70s who was unvaccinated.

A male in his 60s from Menard County was unvaccinated.

The 782 new positive COVID-19 cases reported in Sangamon County Wednesday means that 6,326 new cases have been reported in the last eight days.

The SCDPH reported 118 people remain hospitalized.

The number of new positive cases along with hospitalizations are numbers that are still "way too high," said SCDPH director Gail O'Neill.

"The thing we are a little concerned about is the number of vaccinations that are dropping," O'Neill added. "We were pretty good at 150 a day, but now we're around 50 a day. That's not good. People are on a pause with getting their children vaccinated and getting boosters for themselves, so we would encourage them to vaccinate."

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health dashboard for Sangamon County, 120,614 or 61.7% of those eligible have been fully vaccinated. There have been 130,542 (66.83%) who have received one dose.

Sangamon County ranks No. 8 in Illinois for those fully vaccinated 18 to 64 years old at 65.95%.

O'Neill said for those who have had COVID and want to get vaccinated, the new guidance states the wait is now two weeks after a person has completed isolation and is feeling better.

On Wednesday, the IDPH reported 26,491 new cases of the virus out of 194,306 tests performed. Over the previous seven days, the case positivity rate averaged just over 12 percent. But IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said the reported number of cases is no longer the most important statistic to track.

“I am absolutely moving away from the cases because we know that that's not even the full story, given all the home tests and all the positives that are happening at home that are not recorded in any of our Department of Public Health databases,” she said. “But the hospitalizations, you can't hide a hospitalization. And so as we look at those hospitalizations and understand where those numbers are going, …that is definitely a clear signal of the direction we're moving in.”

COVID-19 webinar

The University of Illinois Springfield Center for State Policy and Leadership and the Community Health Roundtable will host a free Zoom webinar on the evolution of COVID-19, the current wave and its impact on people and institutions at noon Friday.

Panelists will review how we got to this point, and how the new wave of infections has affected patients, health care institutions and the people who make up the health care workforce in Sangamon County and Illinois.

Panelists include Dr. Vidya Sundareshan, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and medical adviser to the Sangamon County Department of Public Health, and Dr. Marc Shelton, senior vice president and chief clinical officer for the Hospital Sisters Health System.

The discussion will be moderated by Molly Lamb, executive director of the UIS Center of State Policy and Leadership.

In order to attend the event, register online at go.uis.edu/COVIDwebinar. A Zoom link will be emailed to those who register.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Sangamon County IL reports four more COVID-related deaths