Kendall Co. Reports Another COVID-19 Death As Cases Surpass 1,300

KENDALL COUNTY, IL — County health officials reported a new coronavirus-induced death on Tuesday, bringing the total death toll to 25. According to a release from the Kendall County Health Department, the deceased is a male in his 70s "that suffered from additional health complexities."

There are currently 1,350 reported cases with 901 in recovery, as per public health data. The last death — of a female in her 50s — was reported on Friday.

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health website, among the three long-term care facilities in Kendall County, Symphony at the Tillers of Oswego currently has the highest number of cases at 50 and nine deaths.

As per data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, only one percent of Kendall County's population have tested positive for the coronavirus and 0.019 percent have died because of it. However, until last week, less than one percent had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

County health officials are asking residents to do their part in containing the spread of COVID-19 as the regional positivity rate continues to rise.

The Kendall County Health Department wrote in a release on Wednesday that the testing positivity rate for Illinois' North Central region – which Kendall County is part of – had increased every day for the last several days and was at about 4 percent as of July 29, according to public health data.

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.

State health officials on Tuesday announced 1,471 new cases of the coronavirus and 19 additional deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, bringing the statewide total to 183,712 confirmed infections and 7,545 known deaths.

The statewide positive-test rate fell by a tenth of a percentage point from Monday. It now stands at 3.9 percent, up from a low of 2.4 percent last month. In the past 24 hours, labs in Illinois have processed 45,598 coronavirus tests, for a total of more than 2.8 million since the pandemic began. According to Johns Hopkins University, a positivity rate of less than 5 percent is a good measure of whether enough tests are being conducted.

Last week, Illinois public health director Ngozi Ezike made clear that the state is headed in the wrong direction.

For more news and information like this, subscribe to the Oswego Patch for free. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here. Don't forget to like us on Facebook!