The City of Evanston recognizes that the City is an area of “substantial transmission.” In a prepared statement today, the City recommends two things:
“Get vaccinated. Vaccination continues to be the number one protection against severe illness from COVID-19. Everyone 12 years and older is strongly encouraged to get vaccinated. Visit vaccines.gov to find a vaccination appointment or call 1-800-232-0233. Vaccines are safe, effective and free!
“Wear a mask in public indoor settings—even if you’re vaccinated. The City is following guidance from the [Centers for disease Control and Prevention] and [Illinois Department of Public Health], which calls for all individuals two years or older to wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission.”
Recent trends
New Cases: The weekly number of new cases per 100,000 people in Illinois jumped to 163 for the week ending Aug. 12, a 27% increase from the week ending Aug. 5. The number of new cases per week in the State are now 608% higher than they were on June 10, the day before the State moved to Phase 5. The trend is up.
The above chart illustrates that the trends of new cases per week are also up in Evanston, suburban Cook County and Chicago. The number of new cases per 100,000 in each region in the past week are: Evanston – 84; suburban Cook County – 116; Chicago – 98; and Illinois – 163
.An area with between 50 and 99 new cases per 100,000 people in the latest week is considered to be an area with “substantial transmission.” An area with more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people is considered to be “high transmission.” See footnote 1.
Test Positivity Rates: The seven-day test-positivity rates in each region are: Evanston – 1.8%; suburban Cook County – 4.6%; Chicago – 3.5%; and Illinois – 5.8%. The test positivity rates are trending up in each region. For example, the State’s rate has moved up from 1.6% on July 8 to 5.8% today. See footnotes 2 and 3.
Vaccinations: The number of people in the State who are vaccinated continues to grow, but at a very slow pace. As of Aug. 12, 74.2% of Illinois residents 12 and older had at least one dose of a vaccine, up from 73.2% on Aug. 5; and 57.5% were fully vaccinated, compared to 56.1%. These percentages include people who reside in Illinois and have been vaccinated in Illinois or in other states. The seven-day average for vaccinations is 27,611, up from 24,988 one week ago. (Source: CDC and IDPH.)
As of Aug. 9, 86% of Evanston residents 12 and older had received at least one dose of a vaccine; 79% were fully vaccinated. (Source: City of Evanston.)
Delta Variant: According to data published by IDPH, in the last seven days there were 46 new cases of the Delta variant in Illinois, comprising about 0.2% of the total new cases in the State in that same period. Why this is so much lower than the national level is not clear.
On a nationwide basis, the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases today was about 113,000 per day. Jeff Zients, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, said the increase in cases in the nation was due to the Delta variant, which is spreading primarily among unvaccinated people.
Evanston – COVID
Evanston reported six new COVID-19 cases of Evanston residents today, compared to 18 yesterday, and seven on Tuesday.
There has been a total of 62 new COVID-19 cases of Evanston residents in the last seven days.
The seven-day test positivity rate today is 1.8%.
There has been a total of 4,814 COVID-19 cases of Evanston residents during the pandemic, 65 of which are active.
No Evanstonian has died from COVID-19 since May 31. The number of deaths due to COVID-19 is 118.
Impact of Northwestern University. The most recent data on Northwestern University’s website reports that between Aug. 6 and Aug. 12, there were 22 new confirmed COVID-19 cases of an NU faculty member, staff member or student. If the faculty member, staff member or student resides in Evanston, the case or cases would be included in the City’s numbers.
FOOTNOTES
1/ The State moved to Phase 5 of the Restore Illinois Plan on June 11. As of July 1, the RoundTable has been covering COVID-19 metrics once a week on Thursdays. Specifically, the RoundTable is presenting two charts showing: 1) the trends in the number of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in two recent seven-day periods for Evanston, Chicago, Suburban Cook County, and the State. The chart also shows the weekly numbers of new cases for each region as of June 10 as a baseline to gauge whether cases are going up since the move to Phase 5; and, 2) the most recent test positivity rates for these areas.
As discussed in footnote 3 below, the CDC recommends that these two measures be used to determine the level of risk of transmission. If we see a surge in new cases or in the test positivity rates, we will consider covering additional metrics.
We will also report the most recent percentages of vaccinated people, 12 years and older, in Evanston and Illinois.
2/ In late July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), and Evanston’s Health & Human Services Dept. each adopted recommendations that everyone, including fully vaccinated people, wear a mask in a public indoor setting in areas with “substantial” and “high transmission” of new COVID-19 cases. Areas of substantial transmission are considered to be those with between 50 and 99 cases per 100,000 people over a 7-day period. Areas of high transmission are considered to be those with more than 100 cases per 100,000 people over a 7-day period.
They also recommend universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.
3/ On Feb. 12, the CDC issued a K-12 School Operational Strategy. As part of that strategy, the report says CDC recommends the use of two measures to determine the level of risk of transmission: 1) the total number of new cases per 100,000 persons in the past 7 days; and 2) the percentage of COVID tests during the last seven days that were positive. The CDC provides a chart to assess whether the risk of transmission is low, moderate, substantial, or high. If the two indicators suggest different levels of risk, CDC says the higher level of risk should be used. The table below, reprinted from CDC’s report, provides CDC’s Indicators and Thresholds for Community Transmission of COVID-219.
CDC’s guidelines are available here: Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools through Phased Prevention | CDC
City’s vaccine information. https://evanston.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/4af6046cf4684656a4ca95886c2605d1
City of Evanston Coronavirus Case Dashboard (arcgis.com)
On a nation-wide basis, the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases today was about 113,000 per day. Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said the increase in cases was to the Delta variant which was spreading primarily among unvaccinated people.