Coronavirus Positivity, New Cases Increase In Will County

WILL COUNTY, IL — Coronavirus positivity and new cases in Will County rose during the last week when Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a set of new restrictions in the Will-Kankakee region, triggered by regional coronavirus mitigation metrics, and as state public health officials announced the week before that the county had reached a COVID-19 "warning level."

As of Friday, there are a total of 128 new cases per 100,000 people in Will County and the target is 50. This number has significantly increased from 92 last week. The positivity rate has also increased from 7.1 percent last Friday to 8.8 percent.

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.

Due to these metrics, new mitigations took effect in the county starting Wednesday, according to which, indoor dining has been suspended and outdoor services can only be available until 11 p.m. According to the release from the governor's office, these mitigations do not apply to schools. The measures will remain in effect over a 14-day period after which time more stringent mitigation measures can be implemented if metrics do not improve. You can see the new mitigations online here.

According to data reported by Will County Health Department, five zip codes in the county are showing the highest number of increase in COVID-19 cases, and they are mostly in the towns of Plainfield, Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Naperville and Joliet. As of Friday, there are a total of 11,311 cases in the county and 360 deaths.

The WCHD website shows the following zip codes in Will County with the highest number of cases as of Friday:

• 60440 (Bolingbrook) - 1,239
• 60435 (Joliet) - 1,077
• 60446 (Romeoville) - 816
• 60586 (Plainfield) - 783
• 60432 (Joliet) - 694

As of Friday, Region 7 — the Will-Kankakee region — is showing seven days of positivity increase with a 0.1 increase in the last two days. It is currently at 8.4 percent. The region also has days of hospital admission increase over a 10-day period. Currently, there are 27 percent of surgical beds and 27 percent of ICU beds available across the two-county region, which has fallen from last week.

This will reach a warning level if there is less than 20 percent availability for either types of hospital beds.

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