Suburban Cook County exits mitigation tier

[February 03, 2021]  By SARAH MANSUR
Capitol News Illinois
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SPRINGFIELD — On Tuesday, suburban Cook County moved into more relaxed COVID-19 restrictions, leaving only three of the state’s 11 COVID-19 mitigation regions still under Tier 1 and Tier 2 restrictions.

Regions 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11 have all entered Phase 4, meaning indoor dining and competitive high school sports can resume in those areas.

Regions 8 and 9 remain in Tier 1 restrictions, which means indoor dining and bar service is allowed in a limited capacity.

In order to move from Tier 1 to Phase 4, regions must have positivity rates at 6.5 percent or below for three days as well as intensive care unit bed availability at 20 percent for three consecutive days, and no sustained increase in COVID hospitalizations.

Movement from Tier 2 to Tier 1 requires positivity rates between 6.5 percent and 8 percent for three days, and the same ICU bed and hospitalization requirements as Tier 1 to Phase 4.

Region 8, which covers Kane and DuPage counties, and Region 9, which covers Lake and McHenry counties, have not yet seen three straight days below 6.5 percent but will likely achieve that metric by Wednesday, the state reported.

Region 4 in the Metro East area on the St. Louis border is the only region still in Tier 2, which prohibits indoor dining or drinking, because the region has shown availability of ICU beds at 20 percent or more for only one day.

The regional movement among tiers and phase 4 comes as the state’s rolling seven-day average case positivity rate ticked downward to 3.7 percent, declining two-tenths of a percentage point from the previous day. The state’s rolling positivity rate is the lowest it’s been since Oct. 8.

Illinois Department of Public Health map of medical regions and which regions are subject to escalated mitigations. (Credit: Illinois Department of Public Health)

The state reported 2,304 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday out of 60,899 test results reported over the previous 24 hours, making a one-day positivity rate of 3.8 percent.

An additional 47 deaths were reported Tuesday, bringing the statewide virus death toll since the pandemic began to 19,306 out of more than 1.1 million cases and 16.1 million test results reported.

To date, 1,028,969 vaccines have been administered in Illinois out of 1,951,925 total doses, or about 53 percent. About 496,100 doses have been allocated to the federal government’s Pharmacy Partnership program for long-term care facilities. Of those, 163,592 doses were administered, or about 33 percent.

Over the previous seven days, the state vaccinated an average of 44,139 individuals per day, including a total of 32,559 doses administered Monday.

As of Monday night, there were 2,447 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Illinois, an increase of 60 from the day before.

There were 533 patients in intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 as of Monday night, a decrease of 18 from the day prior, and 265 patients using ventilators as of Monday, a decrease of 13 from the day prior.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.