McLean County has seen a 53% drop in active coronavirus cases in the last week.
Bloomington-Normal hospitals also have seen a drop in the number of COVID-19 patients, according to data from the McLean County Health Department (MCHD), but 29 McLean County residents are still being treated for COVID-19 complications. That's up from 24 last week.
MCHD indicated Carle BroMenn and OSF St. Joseph medical centers have 32 COVID patients receiving treatment. That’s down from 38 on Tuesday. The county did not provide COVID data on Wednesday and Thursday because county offices were closed during the snowstorm.
McLean County reports 1,176 people are isolating at home. The county’s 1,205 active cases compares with 2,584 cases the county had one week ago.
The county’s latest data that tracks a nine-day period from Jan. 27 to Feb. 4 indicates people in their 20s were the largest population group to test positive (415), followed closely by children 11 and under (398). Children under age 5 are not yet eligible to receive the COVID vaccine.
McLean County’s testing positivity rate fell to 6.3% — down from a high of 26.9% on Jan. 7 and now matching the current statewide rate.
There have been 339 COVID-related deaths in the county since the start of the pandemic.
According to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), 59.2% of McLean County residents are fully vaccinated.
Omicron dominant
Pekin-based Reditus Labs, which runs the COVID testing site at the Interstate Center in west Bloomington, conducted sequencing of COVID-19 positive tests collected Jan. 11-12. Reditus indicated 88 of 90 positive samples were identified as the omicron variant and the other two were the delta variant.
“The omicron variant is currently the most predominate SARS-CoV-2 circulating within the U.S. as it’s been anticipated,” said Reditus CEO Aaron Rossi. “The interesting story here is, rapidly, omicron became almost 100% of all positive cases so quickly. The data does show that also is the case in our testing area.”
