Will County In Substantial Risk Category For New COVID Cases: CDC

ROMEOVILLE, IL — Will County is among three northern Illinois counties that have registered enough spread of the coronavirus to be considered a "substantial" risk, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Along with McHenry County and DuPage County, CDC data shows that Will County meets the guidelines for areas where local residents — including those who have been fully vaccinated — are recommended to wear a mask in indoor settings. Each of the three counties reported at least 50 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus per 100,000 residents over the past week, according to state health officials. Cook County was added to the "substantial" list on Thursday afternoon.

In Will County, the rolling seven-day average for new cases is 2.8 percent. More than 709,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been distributed, and 49 percent of local residents have been fully vaccinated.

“In the last few weeks we have seen positive COVID case numbers more than triple,” Will County Health Department Executive Director Sue Olenek said in a news release on Thursday. “It is mostly due to the delta variant, but it is still COVID-19, and those who are unvaccinated are at risk. Please get your vaccination, and therefore limit the transmission of the virus. As the number of vaccinated individuals increases, the virus has less people to infect, and therefore less of an opportunity to continue mutating.”

The news release said that Will County health officials are encouraging local residents to wear masks in public settings due to the designation of the county being a significant risk, officials said. The CDC guidance also said it is recommending that vaccinated residents getting tested for COVID-19 within 3-5 days of being around someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Chicago and other suburban counties all are considered a "moderate risk," but they have shown a steep increase in confirmed cases over the past week. If cases continue to rise, more regions could move into the "substantial" risk category as Cook County was on Thursday.

The CDC issued the new guidance Tuesday after confirmed cases of the coronavirus jumped significantly, due mainly to the delta variant of the coronavirus. Among 89 cases involving variant strains of the coronavirus in Illinois over the past week, health officials said, 80 of them were tied to the delta variant.

First identified in India, the delta variant is much more contagious than the original virus and is much more likely to require hospitalization, according to a study published in The Lancet.

Health officials and medical experts have stated that unvaccinated residents are at the most risk of being infected by the delta variant. In Illinois, health officials said that more than 56 percent of residents ages 12 and up have been fully vaccinated, while 72 percent of Illinois residents have received at least one shot.

The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 2,082 new cases of COVID-19 over the past 24 hours on Wednesday, and six people died from the virus. A total of 23,420 people have died since the start of the pandemic, and more than 1.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported.