While a vaccine makes its way into our rural and oftentimes overlooked communities, new CoViD cases continue to crop up according to health department reports. The latest numbers for White County from the Egyptian Health Department include 15 new cases. Of them, 11 are females. Gallatin County reports 4 new cases and Saline County added 17 for a total of 36 from the tri county area yesterday. White County has now reported a total of 1,269 cases since the pandemic’s onset. 36 residents have had to be hospitalized and 22 have perished.
Neighboring Hamilton County reported a spike though the numbers are cumulative from over the holiday weekend. Authorities there say 28 new positive cases have been reported bringing the total there to 605 since the first cases was reported back in late spring, early summer there. A dozen Hamilton Countians have lost their life due to the virus itself or complications surrounding CoViD-19.
At 8:30 Monday night, Wayne County health department officials announced their latest update which includes 6 lab confirmed cases along with 2 more antigen probable cases. To date, Wayne County has had 1,254 lab confirmed cases of coronavirus as well as 118 probable instances and 44 deaths attributed in some way to CoViD. The department says 110 people in the county are currently under isolation while they recover.
The Department of Public Health in Illinois has released it’s phased approach to CoViD-19 vaccination distribution. The plan contains 5 phases. Of course, because it’s Illinois and we either can’t do things in a straightforward fashion or we love bullet points, those phases are broken down into 1, 1A, 1B, 1C and Phase 2 categories. Currently, Illinoisans are in Phase 1A which means the vaccine is going to Healthcare Personnel and Long Term Care Facility and staff. The entire state will in the coming days or weeks move to phase 1B which will initiate vaccination of persons aged 75 and older along with frontline essential workers, described as first responders including volunteers, corrections officers, manufacturing workers, grocery store employees, public transit workers and the education sector.
