St. Clair County breaks daily COVID-19 case record for second consecutive day
St. Clair County on Friday reported a record amount of new COVID-19 cases for the second day in a row.
Officials reported 330 new positive COVID-19 cases Friday afternoon during the county’s daily COVID-19 briefing, breaking the county’s record set Thursday of 314 cases. The county’s total number of cases since the pandemic began now stands at 22,713.
“This is our holiday fallout from Christmas ... and to think we’ve still got a couple more weeks of the fallout from New Year’s,” St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency Director Herb Simmons said of the recent spike in cases.
The county also reported an additional death due to COVID-19 on Friday, a woman in her 80s with unknown health conditions.
“We’re up to 352 (deaths) in the county,” Simmons said. “It’s going to continue to take lives until we get vaccines into people’s arms.”
The county announced a voluntary sign-up service for individuals to be notified when they are eligible to be vaccinated in the future. However, St. Clair County Health Department Emergency Response Coordinator Sam Bierman stressed that the service was not for registering to receive a vaccine.
The form for the service can be found here.
County Board Chairman Mark Kern said the first two rounds of the vaccination process will take some time due to the large number of health care employees in the county and number of citizens over the age of 65.
“It’s going to be a significant undertaking to be able to vaccinate and get through the 1B population, let alone get through the 1A population,” Kern said. “This is just going to take time.”
Here are the early priority groups, according to the latest information from the Illinois Department of Public Health on the vaccine, which is subject to change:
- Phase 1A: Health care personnel and people who live or work in long-term care facilities such as nursing homes.
- Phase 1B: People who are 65 years old or older; firefighters; police officers; corrections officers; food and agricultural workers; U.S. Postal Service workers; manufacturing workers; grocery store workers; public transit workers; teachers; school support staff members; and daycare workers.
- Phase 1C: People who are 16 to 64 years old with high-risk medical conditions (conditions include obesity, diabetes, pulmonary disease, a heart condition like high blood pressure, kidney disease, cancer, an impaired immune system, sickle cell and pregnancy) and people who work in transportation and logistics, water and wastewater, food service, housing construction, finance, information technology, communications, energy, legal services, media, public safety and public health.
“These masks are extremely important while we’re waiting to get a shot in our arm,” Kern added.
Earlier in the day, Madison County Health Department Director Toni Corona said vaccination of health care workers will carry on for an estimated four weeks in Madison County before the next round of eligible individuals can begin being vaccinated.
She said an estimated 4,500 vaccines have been administered in the county.
“It’s going to take a little bit of time to get through this process,” Corona said. “The state is telling us we’ll likely be in the 1A stage for the next four weeks or so.”
Number of Southwestern Illinois’ available hospital beds falls again as cases rise
Roughly 89% of the metro-east’s staffed hospital beds and 83% of its intensive care unit beds are currently occupied, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
As of Friday, 11.1% of the metro-east’s staffed hospital beds were available for patient use, down from 11.2% Thursday, according to IDPH data. Additionally, 17.1% of the region’s intensive care unit beds were available Friday, down from 20.9% Thursday.
At the beginning of the week, 23.5% of ICU beds and 13.7% of staffed hospital beds in the metro-east were available.
Friday marked the 11th-consecutive day the region’s hospital bed availability has been under the state-set threshold of 20%, which plays a part in determining whether COVID-19 restrictions need to be tightened or relaxed. Currently, the entire state is in Tier 3 mitigations.
Restrictions on Illinois businesses may be lifted as early as Jan. 15, depending on the level of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations in their communities, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday. Illinois officials had paused any removal of restrictions through the end of year holidays, even as statistics improved in some areas of the state.
Officials picked Jan. 15 as the earliest date for that to happen because it is outside of the time frame when the state may see any potential surge in COVID-19 diagnoses from holiday gatherings.
Tier 3 restrictions went into place statewide on Friday, Nov. 20. The third tier tightens restrictions on indoor dining, bars and social gatherings while adding restrictions to casinos, retailers, video gaming and museums.
Officials in the metro-east have continuously warned about the possibility of the region running low on hospital and ICU beds, prompting some area hospitals to temporarily cease elective surgeries.
Region 4’s rolling seven-day average positivity rate was 13.5% Friday, up from 13.3% Thursday. Additionally, the region reported a daily positivity rate of 16.6% on Friday, up from 15.1% on Thursday.
The new testing positivity rate and hospital and ICU bed availability are based on data recorded as of Jan. 6. A region’s positivity rate is its percentage of positive COVID-19 tests versus the number of tests taken over a seven-day period.
The state classifies the metro-east as Region 4, which covers seven counties: St. Clair, Madison, Monroe, Bond, Washington, Clinton and Randolph. County-by-county data is available on the state health department’s website.
Illinois reports new cases, deaths Friday
This information is provided by the Illinois Department of Public Health. The number in parentheses shows the difference from the previous day’s increase or total.
New cases: 9,277 (+520)
New deaths: 126 (-51)
New tests: 118,665 (+13,147)
Total cases: 1,017,322
Total deaths: 17,395
Total tests: 13,922,611
Hospitalizations: 3,777 (-144)
People in ICU: 780 (-3)
People on ventilators: 422 (-28)
Statewide positivity rate (from Jan. 1-Jan. 7): 8.5% (+0.1%)
Friday’s breakdown for Region 4
New cases: 852
New deaths: 2 (St. Clair County and Bond County each reported one death)
Daily positivity rate (as of Tuesday): 13.0% (-3.6%)
Seven-day rolling average positivity rate (as of Tuesday): 13.5% (+0.2%)
Regional hospitalizations: 200 (+1) (provided by St. Clair County)
Regional patients on ventilators: 17 (+6) (provided by St. Clair County)
Hospital bed availability: 11.1% (-0.3%)
ICU bed availability: 16.8% (-3.2%)
New cases from nearby counties outside Region 4:
New deaths from nearby counties outside Region 4:
ST. CLAIR COUNTY
Friday’s new data: 330 new positives, 1 new death, 2,025 new tests administered
Total overall: 22,713 positives, 352 deaths, 219,844 tests administered, 20,097 recoveries, 108 patients hospitalized with 13 patients on ventilators
Additional data: Individuals who tested positives ranged from under the age of 10 to their 90s. Of the 330 new positives, 155 individuals were under the age of 40.
Congregate living facilities: Cedar Trails in Freeburg reported three new cases, Colonnade Senior Living reported 45 new cases, Freeburg Care Center reported one new case, Joe’s Place in Shiloh reported five new cases, Mercy Rehab and Care Center in Swansea reported one case and one death, Morningside of Shiloh reported two new cases and Sycamore Village in Swansea reported four new cases.
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 11.3% (-3.1%); seven-day average — 12.9% (No change from Thursday)
MADISON COUNTY
Friday’s new data: 230 new confirmed positives, 55 new probable positives, 1,731 new tests administered
Total overall: 22,095 positives, 383 deaths, 202,371 tests administered, 12,985 recoveries, 63 patients hospitalized with 4 patients on ventilators
Additional data: Individuals who tested positives ranged from under the age of 10 to their 80s. Of the 285 new positives, 185 individuals were under the age of 40.
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 14% (-1.9%); 7-day average — 13.5% (-0.5%)
CLINTON COUNTY
Friday’s new data: 59 new positives
Total overall: 4,754 positives, 76 deaths, 4,330 recoveries, 12 patients hospitalized
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 17.3% (+1.6%); 7-day average — 12.6% (+1.3%)
RANDOLPH COUNTY
Friday’s new data: 41 new positives
Total overall: 3,555 positives, 60 deaths, 3,297 recoveries
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 11.0% (-9.1%); 7-day average — 12.7% (+0.5%)
MONROE COUNTY
Friday’s new data: 18 new positives
Total overall: 3,374 positives, 61 deaths, 38 patients hospitalized
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 6.8% (-24.9%); seven-day average — 14.0% (-0.6%)
BOND COUNTY
Friday’s new data (Jan. 7-8): 76 new positives, 1 new death
Total overall: 1,774 positives, 17 deaths, 35,536 tests administered
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 20.5% (+3.1%); seven-day average — 12.7% (+1.4%)
WASHINGTON COUNTY
Friday’s new data: 43 new positives
Total overall: 1,374 positives, 23 deaths, 1,208 recoveries, 7 hospitalizations
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 22.0% (-18%); 7-day average — 26.8% (No change from Monday)
MACOUPIN COUNTY
Friday’s new data: No new data as of 4 p.m.
Total overall: 3,629 positives, 89 deaths, 2,117 recoveries
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 10.0% (+3.6%); 7-day average — 8.7% (-0.5%)
JERSEY COUNTY
Friday’s new data: No new data as of 4 p.m.
Total overall: 2,057 positives, 31 deaths, 19,541 tests administered, 1,937 recoveries
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 8.0% (-5.0%); 7-day average — 9.7% (-0.2%)
PERRY COUNTY
Friday’s new data: No new data as of 4 p.m.
Total overall: 2,532 positives, 52 deaths, 2,012 recoveries
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 10.7% (-13.0%); 7-day average — 14.6% (+0.3%)
CALHOUN COUNTY
Friday’s new data: No new data as of 4 p.m.
Total overall: 421 positives, three deaths, 372 recoveries
Positivity rates (as of Tuesday): Daily — 0.0% (-8.8%); 7-day average — 14.1% (+1.5%)
Editor’s note: The number of new COVID-19 cases for ZIP codes in each county is reported on Mondays. Information comes from county sources and the IDPH website.
State, nation, world COVID-19 statistics
Here are the latest available statistics from the Illinois Department of Public Health and Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus map as of Friday afternoon.
- Illinois: 1,017,322 cases, 17,395 deaths, 13,922,611 tests
- U.S.: 21,857,616 cases, 369,990 deaths, 13,024,142 recoveries
- World: 87,643,563 cases, 1,891,700 deaths, 63,132,543 recoveries
Testing sites in southwestern Illinois
Here are some upcoming coronavirus testing options:
- Every Tuesday and Thursday: 9-11 a.m. COVID-19 rapid testing at the Clinton County Fairgrounds, 1899 Methodist St., Carlyle
The testing site at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center in East St. Louis has been moved to St. Clair Square mall, behind Dillards. It’s open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. It’s a drive-thru with four tents, allowing people to stay in their cars.
The Illinois Department of Public Health will continue to deploy mobile testing teams to locations in East St. Louis, including to 4601 State St., from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Sunday and Monday. Capacity is limited, and hours of operation are subject to change based on available equipment.
Additionally, St. Clair County has a new service center at 330 W. Main St. in Belleville. The regular hours for the location are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursdays; and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fridays.
Touchette Regional Hospital and Southern Illinois Healthcare Foundation also offer daily testing in Belleville and Wood River. Call 618-646-2596 for an appointment.
This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 4:42 PM.