Will County Coronavirus Positivity On The Decline: IDPH

WILL COUNTY, IL — Coronavirus positivity in Will County has started to move in the right direction, according to public health data. As of Friday, the county has a positivity rate of 7.5 percent. This comes after the Illinois Department of Public Health reported that the positivity rate was at an all-time high of 9 percent as of Aug. 4, putting the county at a warning level for this metric.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a set of new restrictions in the Will-Kankakee region on Aug. 24, 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." If the positivity rate continues to decline, the restrictions could be lifted.

As of Friday, there are a total of 117 new cases per 100,000 people in Will County and the target is 50. This number has increased from 99 last week. The county is on target for other metrics such as the number of hospital admissions for COVID-19-like illness and the number of deaths. However, the county's availability of ICU beds is close to the warning. It is currently at 29.9 percent and the target is at least 20 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 IDPH website states.

"We are still above where we need to be, but we can do this!" the Will County Health Department said in a social media post. "Please continue to wear your mask correctly in public places and whenever spatial distancing is not possible, wash your hands often, and watch your distance, maintaining 6ft of separation when possible."

According to the WCHD website, there are 12,820 cases of the coronavirus in the county as of Friday, with 367 deaths.