It’s been almost two months since the Rock Island County Health Department announced their highest single-day number of positive COVID cases in the county. On Friday, they announced the county’s new high single-day case number - 78.
On Friday officials said the day’s total of 78 is “demoralizing”. County officials also announced that a man in his 90′s who was hospitalized has died of COVID.
The county’s total number of confirmed cases is at 4,017 and the county’s total number of deaths is now at 99. “We have yet another death today, making the total number 99 since the pandemic began,” said chief operating officer at the health department, Janet Hill. “We send our deepest sympathies to his friends and family.”
The county on Friday returned to the warning level status with a positivity rate of 9.4 percent. “We’ve never had this many cases in one day, and it’s demoralizing,” Hill said. "We fear Quad Citians are tuning out our messages just as the virus is surging. You might be done with COVID, but COVID is not done with us. We are bracing for months of being indoors, where the virus spreads more easily. If it’s this bad in October, just think how many Quad Citians will get sick and how many will die this winter.”
The warning status is for the week ending Oct. 17. The metrics allow counties to move in and out of warning status. The Quad Cities has been a COVID-19 hotspot in Illinois for many months. Counties meeting set targets are in blue on the state’s county-level map, while counties that are not meeting the targets are shown in orange. “We are not surprised that we have returned to orange,” Hill said. “We are seeing rising case counts and test positivity rates.” Currently, Rock Island County’s positivity rate is 9.4 percent, which IDPH terms “substantial.”