Naperville moved back into a “high” community level of COVID-19 this week just as the city gears up for a full weekend of activities, including the opening Centennial Beach, Indian Prairie District 204’s indoor high school graduation ceremonies and the annual Memorial Day parade.
The counties now listed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at high are DuPage, Will, Cook, Lake, McHenry, Grundy, Boone, Lee and Winnebago in northern Illinois and Fulton, Knox, Henderson, Mason, Peoria and Tazewell in central Illinois, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
An additional 30 counties in Illinois are now rated at medium community level, according to the CDC.
“With 45 counties in Illinois now rated at a medium or high community level, we should all be sure that we are up-to-date with vaccinations and booster shots,” Amaal Tokars, IDPH acting director said a news release.
“We should all strongly consider masking up if we are entering indoor public places and avoiding indoor crowed spaces whenever possible at this time — especially if you are at risk of a severe outcome. If you test positive, promptly contact a health care provider to discuss which treatment is right for you. The treatments are much more effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths when they are taken early in the course of the illness,” Tokars said.
The CDC recommends people in “high” areas to wear a well-fitting mask indoors in public, regardless of vaccination status.
The news comes as the number of COVID-19 cases in Naperville have been trending downward for the past week after being on a slight upward trajectory since late March.
The city’s COVID-19 dashboard shows 1,771 active cases on May 18, which fell to 1,564 as of Thursday.
DuPage and Will counties also have experienced similar declines, according to Naperville’s dashboard.
DuPage reported 8,256 cases on May 18 and numbers have fallen since then to 6,808. In Will County, numbers went from a recent high of 4,804 cases on May 19 to 4,294 this week.
The number of patients being treated for COVID-19 at Edward Hospital has remained at 14 the last two weeks, according to figures provided by the hospital.
The new designation will not trigger a reinstatement of mask mandates or vaccine requirements, Chicago officials said at a news conference Thursday, because the city’s health system remains “stable.” Instead, officials emphasized the importance of voluntarily wearing masks in indoor public settings again, as well as getting vaccinated and boosted.
Chicago’s public health Commissioner Allison Arwady said the city is “pretty confident” that hospital admissions are the reason Cook County, including Chicago, is moving into the higher risk of the metric used by the CDC.
“The CDC looks at the whole health service area when they’re looking at things like hospitalizations,” Arwady said. “With the most recent updates, the city of Chicago is averaging 290 cases per 100,000. For the last seven days, anything over 200 is over goal, but you can see Cook County overall is at 367.”
The Midwest region is now among those the ones with the highest COVID-19 cases in the country and Arwady said it was because the Midwest is doing more testing than the South and also because “we’re getting through this soft variant (of omicron) right now.”
The CDC categorizes areas as having low, medium or high community transmission levels based on case numbers, hospital admissions and inpatient bed use.
Arwady recommended that people avoid crowded indoor gatherings, get tested if they show any flu or COVID-like symptoms, and make a preventive plan of treatment with a primary doctor for immunocompromised people.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer booster for children 5 to 11, though children in that age group are lagging overall when it comes to COVID-19 vaccinations.
As cases rise, the FDA is poised to review data from Moderna and Pfizer trials on children 6 months to 5 years on June 15, a highly anticipated step toward authorizing a vaccine for the youngest and final age group.
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baiduhai’s María Paula Mijares Torres contributed.