Randolph County removed from state's COVID warning list

Randolph County has come off the Illinois Department of Public Health list warning list of counties, dropping out because the county no longer is missing the mark on two or more state metrics.

Randolph County's overall daily positivity rate is 7.1%. For the current week the positivity rate is 5.8%, which is under the state cap of 8%. The only metric where Randolph County is still not making the state target is having 90 cases of COVID for every 100,000 people. This exceeds the state target of 50.

Meanwhile, neighboring Perry, Jackson, Monroe and St. Clair counties remain on the state's warning list.

As of Monday, the Randolph County Health Department said the county had 42 active cases of COVID-19 currently, including 18 new cases between Saturday and Monday.

Of those 42, 41 individuals are recovering at home and one is hospitalized.

Health Department Administrator Angela Oathout is continuing to urge residents to follow the recommended guidelines and take additional precautions.

"Reconsider traveling to other areas where there is a high incidence of COVID-19," she said in the Monday news release. "Practice social distancing, wear a mask in public, maintain a 6-foot space between yourself and others, wash hands often and use hand sanitizer if unable to use soap and water, refrain from unnecessary physical contact such as shaking hands."

In Randolph County, there have been 480 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Of those, 431 patients have recovered and been released to resume normal activity and seven people have died.

The county has tested 6,741 individuals and of those, 6,261 tested negative.