Will County Reopening: COVID-19 Positivity Continues To Rise

WILL COUNTY, IL — Coronavirus positivity rates in Illinois' South Suburban region is continuing to increase, according to public health data. As of Monday, the region has a positivity rate of 8.8 percent, which is higher than Friday's 8.4 percent.

Last week, Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a set of new restrictions in Region 7 — 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."

However, the rounded average number of new hospital admissions with "COVID-like illness" in the last 10 days has decreased by 1 as of Sunday.

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.

Those measures could include restricting the size of social gatherings, reducing capacity at businesses or scaling back operations in industries that pose a higher risk of transmission, like indoor dining, bars, salons and personal care services.

Other than three days with average coronavirus positivity rates above 8 percent, restrictions can also be triggered by a combination of seven days out of the past 10 with increasing positivity rates — plus either a decline in hospital bed capacity below 20 percent or an increase for seven of the last 10 days in the rounded average number of new hospital admissions with "COVID-like illness."

As of Sunday, Region 7 is seeing 6 consecutive days of positivity increase, with 27 percent surgical beds and 27 percent ICU beds still available. If these fall below 20 percent, the region will be at a warning level for this metric.

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