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The McHenry County Department of Health reported 53 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and seven additional deaths Wednesday.
This brings the county's totals to 11,083 confirmed cases, 133 related deaths and six probable deaths. The county's recovery rate currently sits at 98%.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported a man in his 70s and two women in their 90s were among those newly reported deaths related to COVID-19 for McHenry County.
McHenry County residents have been tested a total of 134,048 times since the pandemic began, according to county-specific data collected by the IDPH.
The Lake County Health Department reported a total of 30,468 confirmed cases and 556 related deaths Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the Lake County Health Department issued a release urging the public to avoid social gatherings and stay home as much as possible to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
“In just one month, our rate of new cases has quadrupled in Lake County, and hospitalizations are increasing back to where they were in the spring,” Lake County Health Department Executive Director Mark Pfister said in the release. “Indoor gatherings, with people from different households coming together, are a high-risk activity when so many people are currently infected with COVID-19. At this time, we recommend strictly limiting indoor gatherings to members of your own household."
The Kane County Health Department reported a total of 26,982 confirmed cases and 394 deaths.
Statewide, the IDPH reported a total of 606,771 confirmed cases and 11,014 related deaths. So far, Illinois has conducted 9,359,227 COVID-19 tests. The statewide recovery rate is 97%.
The McHenry County health department has been reporting on four metrics designed to help school administrators decide when it may be safe to gradually begin reopening schools or when to return to a hybrid or remote learning approach.
The metrics used on the dashboard are incidence rate (number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people a day), test positivity rate (percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive), the trend of hospital admissions for COVID-19-like illness and the weekly count of new confirmed cases.
The first three of these four metrics are reported Monday through Friday based on a seven-day rolling average of the data with all but the incident rate reported on a three-day lag. The weekly count of new cases will be updated once a week, also with a three-day lag, according to the health department.
The incident rate is being reported on a five-day lag because of a data backlog, according to the dashboard. According to the advisory, the backlog is only affecting the chart and is not the result of a delay in the processing of laboratory data.
On Wednesday, the incidence rate decreased to 85 cases per 100,000 residents, more than six times as high as the upper threshold of 14 cases recommended by the health department in its reopening plan as one indicator for considering a return to remote learning.
The county's test positivity rate decreased from 20.2% to 20% on Wednesday, still exceeding the threshold of 8% for when schools might consider moving back to remote learning.
There were 16 hospital admissions for COVID-19-like illness reported Wednesday, a decrease of one over Tuesday.
The weekly case count reported for the week of Nov. 1 showed 1,632 new cases, 189 of which were identified in children ages 3 to 18, according to the dashboard.
Among McHenry County ZIP codes, Crystal Lake (60014) has the highest number of COVID-19 cases with a total of 1,667 confirmed cases, according to county data. Woodstock (60098) follows with 1,416 cases.
The McHenry County health department reports only ZIP code data that is located within McHenry County, a department spokeswoman said. Any discrepancies between county and IDPH numbers likely are because of the data's provisional nature and because each health department finalizes its data at different times, she said.
The following is the rest of the local breakdown of cases by ZIP code: McHenry (60050) 1,087; Lake in the Hills (60156) 1,023; Huntley (60142) 863; Algonquin (60102) 848; Harvard (60033) 794; Johnsburg and McHenry (60051) 721; Cary (60013) 656; Marengo (60152) 473; Wonder Lake (60097) 364; Crystal Lake, Bull Valley and Prairie Grove (60012) 333; Spring Grove (60081) 262; Island Lake (60042) 137; Richmond (60071) 126; Fox River Grove (60021) 117; Hebron (60034) 58; Union (60180) 40; Barrington (60010) 36; and Ringwood and Wonder Lake (60072) 22.