COVID-19 mitigation efforts like mask wearing, social distancing, frequent hand washing and even receiving a vaccine booster faded away in Lake County over the past year as most people returned to their pre-pandemic habits despite the fact that the virus is still very much around.
“I don’t believe we’ve reached the endemic stage,” Lake County health department Executive Director Mark Pfister said. “COVID-19 continues to evolve rapidly.”
Lake County went from a low to moderate risk of COVID-19 community spread in November, and remained there since, as the number of cases rose again making the coronavirus pandemic one of the Lake County News-Sun’s top stories of 2022, as it was the past two years.
Pfister said by early fall, he began to notice a voluntary relaxation of habits which remained prevalent through the first part of the year into summer. People wearing masks became spotty, and they no longer stayed home if they were ill.
“People were falling back into old habits,” Pfister said. “I’ve been in meetings where people were coughing and sneezing. People stopped following the three Ws,” he added, referring to mask wearing, maintaining social distance and frequent hand washing.
Lake County is a whisker away from moving into the high-risk category.
As of Friday, the county was averaging 199.27 new cases per week per 100,000 residents — approximately 1,400 total — and 13.4 weekly hospitalizations, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pfister said as people now gather for the holidays, he would not be surprised to see the numbers go higher. If the county reaches a weekly average of 200 cases per 100,000 with more than 10 hospitalizations per 100,000, Lake County would be at a high level of risk like DuPage County.
DuPage County was averaging 202.81 cases and 13.4 new hospitalizations per 100,000 as of Friday, according to the CDC. Suburban Cook and McHenry counties are at medium risk, while Kenosha County in Wisconsin is low risk.
“COVID-19 has not gone away, and is not going away,” Pfister said, when asked about next year. “On the very positive side, we have a vaccine proven to be very successful not only reducing infection, but decreasing hospitalizations and death.”
Lake County continues to be the most vaccinated county in Illinois, with 82.8% of the population receiving their first two shots, according to the CDC. People are not as quick to get the bivalent booster, which protects against the original strain of the virus and the newer Omicron variants.
As of Friday, 25.9% of county residents between 18 and 64 received the newest vaccine booster which became available in September, according to the CDC. Of those 65 and over, 55.3% are boosted. The totals are better than the surrounding counties.
As long as the COVID-19 virus continues to mutate, Pfister said the disease will be in a pandemic rather than endemic stage. influenza is endemic because the strains remain the same each year...