Every county in southwestern Illinois is on state’s COVID-19 warning list
Every county in the metro-east is now on the Illinois Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 warning list.
Illinois’ public health officials reported this week the seven counties in the metro-east had met or exceeded warning levels on the metrics used to track the spread of COVID-19. Those counties include St. Clair, Madison, Randolph, Clinton, Monroe, Bond and Washington.
Counties that are on the warning list are “flagged and aggressively investigated and reported” to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s team to see if restrictions or intervention is necessary.
Currently, 37 Illinois counties and Chicago are at warning levels, due mostly to dwindling ICU bed availability. According to NBC Chicago, all Illinois counties, except one, are seeing a high community transmission rate of COVID-19.
The warning list, which is updated weekly, is based on several indicators that measure the health burden of COVID-19 on Illinois counties. A county reaches warning status when it hits certain criteria such as ICU bed availability, total hospitalizations due to COVID-19, case clusters, the number of new cases per 100,000 people, the number of COVID-19 tests performed, and COVID deaths.
Six of the seven metro-east counties were put on warning list for meeting four of the eight metrics. Bond County was the only county of the seven that meets the thresholds on only two metrics — new cases per 100,000 people and ICU availability, which is tracked region-wide.
In Madison, Randolph, St. Clair, Clinton, Washington and Monroe counties, warning levels were reached in new cases per 100,000 people, test positivity rates, the number of tests performed, and ICU availability. ICU availability is tracked region wide rather by county.
IDPH reported the region as a whole had less than 17.3% of its total intensive care unit beds at hospitals available to new patients.
Randolph County had a 12.4% weekly average testing positivity rate, Monroe County had a 12.1% average, Washington County had an 11.7% average, Madison County had a 10.7% average, St. Clair had a 9.8% average and Clinton County had a 9% average.
The state’s warning list threshold for test positivity rate is 8%.
The six counties also each surpassed the number of new cases per 100,000 people and did not meet the “on target” number of COVID-19 tests performed, which varies by population but is tracked when a county’s positivity rate meets or surpasses 8%.
This story was originally published August 25, 2021 at 5:15 PM.