Region 2 among the Illinois Department of Public Health’s COVID monitoring regions, which includes Knox, Warren and most of the surrounding area, will undergo tightened “resurgence mitigations” against COVID-19.
These will go into effect on Nov. 4.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Public Health made the announcement Sunday.
Measures imposed on Region 2, as well as most other parts of the state, include no indoor seating at bars and restaurants, and gatherings lessened to 25 guests or 25 percent of overall room capacity.
Region 2 is the last of the state’s 11 regions to have mitigations installed, but it’s not much of a surprise. The region has been trending towards the threshold of 8 percent positivity on a rolling seven-day average. The rolling average was about 5 percent Oct 01, and Sunday it was over 9 percent.
There are some regions like Region 1, which encompasses Dixon, Sterling, Rockford and DeKalb, has a rate climbing towards 14 percent.
Region 2 has seen 17 straight days of increased positivity, 10 straight days of increased hospital admissions, and hospital bed availability is at 36 percent.
