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Majority Of 12-to-17-Year-Olds In McLean County Are Vaccinated Against COVID

The McLean County Health Department is exploring a new mass COVID vaccination site to handle booster shots if needed.
Eric Stock
/
WGLT
The McLean County Health Department says nearly 55% of 12-to-17-year olds in McLean County are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

More than half of school-aged children in McLean County who are eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine have gotten the jab, according to data from the McLean County Health Department (MCHD).

The department said Thursday the vaccination rate for 12-to-17-year-olds in the county is 54.8%. The rate is 57.3% for 18-to-64-year-olds. For people over 65, the rate is 89.5% The county’s overall vaccination is 53.2%, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH).

That overall rate includes children under age 12, who are not yet eligible for the COVID vaccine.

IDPH said more than 183,300 COVID vaccines have been administered in McLean County.

Hospitalizations rise

Twenty-eight McLean County residents are hospitalized with COVID-19, according to MCHD. That's an increase of three in the last day, but intensive care capacity has improved. Carle BroMenn Medical Center and OSF St. Joseph Medical Center report 81% of their ICU beds are in use and 93% of all beds have someone in them. The hospitals said they have 32 COVID-19 patients.

Carle Health and OSF HealthCare have both indicated more than 80% of their COVID patients across both health care systems are not fully vaccinated.

McLean County announced 60 daily coronavirus cases on Thursday and said 502 people are isolating at home. Fifty-six people were released from quarantine overnight and 20,629 people are considered recovered from COVID-19.

The 60 positive cases came from a batch of a batch of about 2,600 tests returned overnight. McLean County’s seven-daytesting positivity rate increased to 3.4%, still below state and national averages. The county’s cumulative positivity rate is 4.6% based on more than 466,500 tests conducted since the start of the pandemic.

McLean County has reported 251 COVID-related deaths since the start of the pandemic.

McLean County remains an area of high community transmission, with a seven-day mark of 259 new cases per 100,000 residents. Based on the Center for Disease Control’s COVID data tracker, any county with a rate of 100 new cases or higher per 100,000 residents has high transmission. The entire state of Illinois meets that criteria for high COVID transmission.

Eric Stock is the News Director at WGLT. You can contact Eric at ejstoc1@ilstu.edu.
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