Kendall Co. Health Officials Seek Vigilance As COVID Cases Surge

OSWEGO, IL — As the coronavirus pandemic enters its second year, Kendall County health officials are warning local residents to remain vigilant in their efforts to guard against the virus after seeing a spike in positive cases this week.

The health department announced Friday that 146 new confirmed cases had been reported as of 4 p.m. Thursday. The total over the past week was 55 more than a week ago and although county health officials did not report any new deaths, they are urging residents to keep following safety guidelines.

The new cases takes Kendall County’s total to 12,009 since the pandemic began last year. A total of 90 local residents have died from COVID-19, the county reported. As more doses of the coronavirus vaccines become available and more Illinois residents become eligible to get shots, Kendall County health officials said Friday that 51,482 doses of the vaccines have been administered and that 18,744 county residents (14.65 percent) have been fully vaccinated.

Still, despite efforts to get more shots into arms, health officials are urging residents about the need to maintain proper social distancing and to wear properly-fitted masks at a time when variant strains of the coronavirus are starting to be reported.

Along with mask-wearing and maintaining social distances of six feet or more, health officials wrote recently that residents also need to avoid crowds and “poorly ventilated” indoor spaces and need to continue to wash their hands.

“These practices and the continued effort to vaccine more people can help end this pandemic,” health department officials wrote on the county’s COVID-19 website.

Officials warned that new strains of the virus tend to spread more quickly than COVID-19 and may lead to more confirmed cases. Any increase in cases, officials wrote, will put more stress on local hospitals and on efforts to stop the virus and may lead to more deaths.

“So far, studies suggest that antibodies generated through vaccination with currently authorized vaccines recognize these variants,” the website said. “This is being closely investigated, and more studies are under way.

It continued: “As we are working to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging variants are threatening progress.”