McLean County health officials say they are ”cautiously optimistic” Illinois can safely move into a complete reopening in one week.
Gov. JB Pritzker has said the state of Illinois will move to Phase 5 of its Restore Illinois plan on June 11. He added the state will continue to require mask use while traveling on public transportation, in congregate settings, in health care settings, schools and day cares.
The state also will recommend mask-wearing for people who are not fully vaccinated.
McLean County Health Department (MCHD) public affairs coordinator Marianne Manko said she's encouraged by a recent big drop in new coronavirus cases.
“We are cautiously optimistic. We are looking forward to seeing these numbers continue to go down and we certainly hope that’s the case,” Manko said. “We are cautious because we will still have only roughly about 40% of our population that’s fully vaccinated.”
The county reported 53 new coronavirus cases in the past week — the lowest weekly total since last July.
McLean County reported two COVID-related deaths: a man in his 40s and a man in his 70s. Neither was associated with long-term care. That brings the county’s COVID death toll to 230.
Six McLean County residents are hospitalized with COVID. That's down from the 20 reported last week. Bloomington-Normal hospitals report 91% of their beds are occupied, including 81% of intensive care beds, but they currently only have eight COVID patients under their care, according to MCHD. The county reports 62 people are isolating at home.
The county’s active caseload of 68 is its lowest since July 2020.
Young people continue to make up a majority of new cases. Age groups 17 and under, and people in their 20s had the largest number of weekly cases at 13 each.
The county's seven-day testing positivity rate matches the state mark of 1.5%.
Rural vaccinations
Nearly 150,000 COVID vaccine doses have been put into arms in McLean County, but vaccination rates have dropped sharply since their peak in April.
According to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and compiled by WGLT, the weekly vaccination rate as of June 2 fell 78% from its peak in mid-April.
Even though McLean County’s rate of fully vaccinated (41.1%) trails the state average of 42%, McLean County's rate is the seventh highest in Illinois.
Data from IDPH show counties with higher populations generally have higher vaccination rates, led by DuPage, Cook, Sangamon, Champaign, Monroe, Kendall and McLean counties.
Chicago has a vaccination rate of 41.9%, which also is slightly higher than McLean County.
Manko noted geography has posed a challenge for making the vaccine available to all, noting McLean is the largest county in the state in land mass.
“We have an enormous population all over the county so getting to all of those numbers is where one of our biggest challenges lie,” Manko said.
She said the department has tried to address the access issue by holding more rural clinics.
The county held a clinic Friday in Heyworth, and will hold another next Friday at LeRoy First United Methodist Church.
Youth vaccinations
Manko said the department also is trying to target its messaging to young people to dispel myths about the COVID-19 vaccine.
The health department released data Friday on young adult vaccinations. As of May 18, 30% percent of people ages 25 to 29 were fully vaccinated. The rate drops to 20% for ages 20 to 24 and to 19% for ages 15 to 19.
Manko said many young adults mistakenly believe they already have immunity.
“There’s a lot of hesitancy in that younger population, mainly because so many people have already had COVID and they believe they don’t really need to get the vaccine, because they believe they already have the antibodies,” Manko said.
Researchers aren’t sure how long those antibodies last.
Contact tracers cut
Meanwhile, McLean County has cut its number of contract tracers in half as the coronavirus caseload has dropped.
Manko said the county hired 55 contact tracers last year to help identify and contact people who may have been exposed to COVID-19. That roster was trimmed to 25 after a federal grant expired on May 31.
“We still have some people who are isolating at home and we are still in contact with those people. We are still actively involved in making sure that we maintain all the same standards that we need to maintain to stop the spread of this virus,” Manko said.
Those temporary workers also are helping to staff the county's COVID call center. The remaining workers are under contract through August. Manko said the County Board of Health will decide in July whether it needs the additional staffing beyond August.
Federal grants paid for the positions.
Manko said the county has since hired one of the contact tracer supervisors full time.
Daily updates to end
Starting Wednesday, MCHD said it will move from daily to weekly coronavirus updates to the media and to its COVID dashboard.
WGLT announced last week it will no longer publish daily COVID cases, but will continue to update its COVID data bank as that data becomes available.
