Some health officials breathed a short sigh of relief today as three counties were removed from the Illinois Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 warning list.
Morgan, Cass, Pike, and Sangamon Counties all were absent in the updated list today. Greene County remained on the warning list with a positivity rate of 10.6%.
Morgan County’s positivity rate dropped from 8.1% down to 5.8% during the week that saw a three day stretch of no new confirmed cases from Saturday to Monday, but also confirmation of 94 additional cases as of Thursday’s Morgan County joint Update.
Cass County is now at a 6.7% positivity rate after having some of the highest indicators in the state along with a 14.9% positivity rate. Cass County has been on the warning list from the very beginning when the IDPH started reporting the list on July 31st.
Pike County dropped to 4.4% from 11.3% in the last week, and Greene County is moving the right direction however, going from a 12.1% positivity rate down to a 10.6%.
The positive news for West Central Illinois comes as the State of Illinois announced today a backlog of test reporting was worked through this week, resulting in the Illinois Department of Public Health announcing an additional 5,368 new confirmed cases, with 23 additional deaths, and a statewide seven day positivity rate dropping to 4.1%.
IDPH officials say earlier this week, a slowdown in data processing within IDPH systems affected the reporting of tests due to the large volume of testing occurring in Illinois. They say the data systems are now fixed and the complete backlog has been worked through.
Two system upgrades were reportedly put in place that IDPH officials say is resulting in significantly faster processing capacity. They say that although the slowdown did delay the reporting of some additional aggregate numbers, it did not affect the reporting of positive or negative results to individuals in any way throughout the state.