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78 cases of Sauk Valley area students getting COVID-19

There were 78 reported cases of school-age students with COVID-19 in the four-county Sauk Valley area, according to the most recent data provided by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Of those, 24 were children between the ages of 5 to 11, therefore too young to receive a vaccine.

There were 28 student cases of COVID in the 12 to 17 age group and 26 in the 18-22 age group.

The data was for the week ending Aug. 21.

Whiteside County schools had the most cases with 33. Ten came from the 5 to 11 group. Ogle County schools had 24 cases, with 12 in the youngest group. Lee County had 15 cases and Carroll County had six cases in its schools.

In other developments:

  • Meridian CUSD 223 said Friday it was putting Highland Elementary in Stillman on adaptive pause on the advice of the Ogle County Health Department. The K-2 school had 21 confirmed and probable COVID cases this week. The IDPH classified it as an outbreak.
  • On school coronavirus dashboards, Sterling Public Schools and Dixon Public Schools reported results. Sterling reported on Aug. 27 a weekly average of two positive tests and 85 quarantine cases among students and three quarantine cases among staff. Dixon’s report was from Aug. 20 and showed an average of two student cases at Washington and one at Dixon High. For quarantines, there were an average of five at Washington, one at Madison, one at Reagan Middle and one at Dixon High.

ICU beds

Intensive care unit beds remain in short supply in northwest Illinois, but demand did ease in the past week.

The IDPH said 87% of Region 1 ICU beds were in use, leaving 22 available. That’s two more than the previous week.

Ventilator use is at 37% for the region. There are 216 available.

Transmission rates

The Sauk Valley remains in a state of high transmission, data from Aug. 26 shows.

Ogle County was at a rate of 159.94 cases per 100,000 and had a test positivity rate of 7.17%.

Whiteside County was at 135.93 cases per 100,000 and had a 5.02% test positivity rate.

Carroll County was at 125.83 cases per 100,000 and had a 4.8% test positivity rate.

Lee County had 111.45 cases per 100,000 and a 2.38% test positivity rate.

Vaccination numbers rise slowly

Less than half of the population in each of the four counties has been fully vaccinated, according to data posted on Aug. 27.

That means fully vaccinated persons received one Johnson and Johnson shot or two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine and 14 days have elapsed since the final inoculation.

Lee is at 49.49%, Ogle is at 45.89%, Whiteside is at 44.84% and Carroll is at 39.55%.

The seven-day rolling average for vaccination provided is 76 in Ogle and in Whiteside, 51 for Lee and 17 for Carroll.

Deaths

Lee County had one coronavirus-related death during the week prior to Aug. 21.

Source: The Daily Chronicle

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