BREAKING NEWS: Rock Island County covid-19 numbers have remained steady over the past week, but the numbers in and around Peoria continue to look ominous for Illinois Region 2, which includes the Illinois Quad-Cities.

The covid vaccine is now available to anyone 16 and older.

If Peoria’s numbers continue to drag the region down, it could lead to the entire region, including the Quad-Cities, going back into a shutdown or other mitigations for covid.

Based on the latest numbers released over the weekend by the Illinois Department of Health, Rock Island County has held pretty constant around a 5 percent positivity rate for covid, safely below the 8 percent which would trigger potential mitigations.

However, Peoria has remained consistently above 11 percent, often going up to almost 13 percent, and other counties such as Putnam have also seen spikes, which has pushed the Region 2 numbers up to concerning territory.

Region 2 has seen over 10 days of consistent case increases for covid, which is one of the triggers to go back into mitigations.

The other two triggers are on the borderline.

The region has seen 11 consecutive days under the 20 percent threshold for ICU bed availability,

Local and national health officials recommend the Covid vaccine for everyone.

but the numbers have consistently been at 18-19 percent, just barely below that number.

Likewise, the region has seen 11 consecutive days under the 8 percent positivity rate overall, but none of those days have been below 7 percent, and many have crept dangerously close to going over 8.

Experts advise that people remain diligent in regard to wearing masks and practicing responsible behavior to continue to drive numbers down and maintain our current level of openness in regard to covid mitigation.

Covid numbers have been on the rise in Illinois over the past few weeks, particularly surging around Chicago and Central Illinois, most notably Peoria, which could drive Region 2, which includes the Illinois Quad-Cities, back into mitigations.

A new map shows Illinois among the states which are recommended to go back into covid shut-downs due to a surge in numbers.

That has caused some scientists and experts to advise that Illinois should go back into shutdowns, but Governor JB Pritzker has avoided doing so. The recommendations and surge risk levels are based on a scale developed by the Harvard Global Health Institute and a collaboration of top scientists at institutions around the country, and were published by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, Census Bureau 2019 population estimates, 2010 Census (U.S. territories)

According to NPR, the consortium of researchers and public health experts who developed these risk levels advises states in the red category to issue stay-home orders. They advise orange states to consider stay-home orders, along with increased testing and contact tracing. Yellow states need to keep up social distancing and mask usage, and all states should continue testing and contact tracing.

As earlier reported on QuadCities.com, covid-19 numbers in Illinois Region 2, which includes the Quad-Cities area, have been surging over the past two weeks, putting the area at risk for mitigations and a shutdown of some activities.

Continue to follow QuadCities.com for more updates on this important issue.

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Sean Leary Director of Digital Media

Sean Leary is an author, director, artist, musician, producer and entrepreneur who has been writing professionally since debuting at age 11 in the pages of the Comics Buyers Guide. An honors graduate of the University of Southern California masters program, he has written over 50 books including the best-sellers The Arimathean, Every Number is Lucky to Someone and We Are All Characters.