Daily COVID cases continue to rise in Knox County; four more die

GALESBURG — Four more people died of COVID-19 and new cases in Knox County are on track to surpass last week's peak.

The Illinois Department of Public Health doesn't report COVID-19 cases on the weekend — Saturday and Sunday — and did not update numbers on Monday due to the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. So, the most recent numbers reported are from Friday, Jan. 14.

That means four people died from COVID-19 between Monday and Friday last week. The number of new cases through Friday was 679, which is an average of 170 new cases per day. That per-day average is above last week's daily average of 154 new cases, which led to highest weekly total of 1,082.

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The daily average for new COVID-19 cases has increased dramatically from 27 in the first half of December and 48 new cases per day in the last half of December. 

The four deaths raise that total to 190 COVID deaths since the pandemic began.

OSF HealthCare last week reported the number of hospitalizations across their network, which includes St. Mary Medical Center in Galesburg, increased by 8.7% from the prior week. ICU patients are up 9% and those on ventilators increased by 5%.

Of the OSF COVID-19 hospitalizations, 61% of the patients were unvaccinated, 24% were overdue for vaccination/booster update and 15% were vaccinated and boosted.

The weekly new case numbers for Knox County will be added to this story when they are released Tuesday.

Illinois reports fewer COVID cases

Illinois reported far fewer coronavirus cases in the week ending Sunday, adding 207,203 new cases. That's down 11% from the previous week's tally of 232,889 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Illinois ranked 23rd among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the latest week coronavirus cases in the United States increased 5.8% from the week before, with 5,438,242 cases reported. With 3.81% of the country's population, Illinois had 3.81% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 39 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before.

Many counties did not report during data during the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, disrupting the latest week's statistics. That data is being compared to a week with backlogged cases and deaths from the New Year's holiday weekend. Week-to-week comparisons are skewed and these numbers will be unreliable even as they're accurate to what states reported.

How many people in Knox County have received a COVID-19 vaccine?

• 81% of people in Knox County have received at least one dose of the vaccine, for a total of 40,632 people

• 55% of people in Knox County are fully vaccinated, for a total of 27,453 people

• For a county-by-county look at the vaccination rollout, see our COVID-19 vaccine tracker, which is updated daily.

How many people in Illinois have been vaccinated so far?

• 94% of people in Illinois have received at least one dose of the vaccine, for a total of 11,937,424 people

• 61% of people in Illinois are fully vaccinated, for a total of 7,785,183 people

COVID vaccinations for kids and boosters

The percentages in this story reflect the total share of the population that has received vaccines. That now includes people as young as 5 years old, for whom vaccines have been authorized.

These weekly stories will be updated as more data on vaccination rates in children, as well as booster vaccination rates, are released.