Will County’s COVID-19 test positivity rate remains around 17% – The Herald-News

The rolling average COVID-19 test positivity rate in Will County stood at 17.6% as of early this month, according to the state's latest public health data.

Will County's average rolling test positivity rate hit a high of 20.2% on Nov. 16, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Since then, the rate has been about 17% for a little over a week.

The South Suburban Region, which includes Will and Kankakee counties, has seen its rolling average test positivity rate decrease to 16.8% as of Dec. 1. That's mostly because Kankakee County's rolling average test positivity rate has fallen to 13.8% as of Dec. 1.

Between Nov. 22 and 28, Will County saw 537 new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people. That's down from the previous week's rate of 757 new cases per 100,000, although still well above the IDPH target rate of 50 per 100,000.

In total, more than 41,500 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Will County. More than 560 people have died from COVID-19 in the county, according to the Will County Health Department.

The entire state has been under Tier 3 resurgence mitigations to slow the spread of COVID-19 since Nov. 20. Public officials have said they're worried about another potential surge of new cases and hospitalizations after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Although the region's hospital intensive care unit capacity has fallen below 20% in recent weeks, a situation the IDPH director recently called "dire," it appears to have slightly improved over the past week.

Out of 162 adequately equipped and staffed hospital ICU beds in the South Suburban Region, 36 were available as of Thursday. The ventilator utilization in the region stood at about 45%.

The Will County Health Department offers regular COVID-19 testing opportunities at various locations around the county in Joliet, Romeoville, New Lenox and University Park every week to the public for free.

For information and resources related to COVID-19 in Will County, visit willcountyhealth.org.

See the original post:

Will County's COVID-19 test positivity rate remains around 17% - The Herald-News