Champaign County sees deadliest week from COVID-19

Cameron Krasucki

Junior Jessica Osemwengie deposits her completed COVID-19 test into the receptacle at the State Farm Center testing site on Oct. 9. Some students are unable to go home for Thanksgiving break due to having to quarantine.

By Ethan Simmons, News Editor

Another five Champaign County residents have died from COVID-19, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District announced on Tuesday.

It’s the most fatalities in a single day for the county since the pandemic began. 

The virus claimed the lives of a woman in her 60s, a woman in her 70s, two men in their 80s and a man in his 90s. 

According to CUPHD, 37 county residents have died from COVID-19 to date. Eight of those deaths have come in the last week.

On Wednesday, CUPHD reported another 305 cases of COVID-19 in the county, though some were from previous days, administrator Julie Pryde confirmed. 

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The active case count jumped by 178 on Wednesday, while another 109 people have been ordered to quarantine after exposure to a COVID-19-positive person. 

Eighty-four of the newly confirmed cases came from ZIP code 61820, which covers most of campus. The same ZIP code holds 155 of the county’s 528 active cases. 

In all, Champaign County has reported 7,449 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, with more than 1,400 cases in the last two weeks. 

As of Wednesday, 901,881 tests had been conducted in the county and confirmed by CUPHD. 

Since July, 11,458 close contacts have been ordered to quarantine by CUPHD. About 10.4% of them — 1,194 people — have tested positive for the virus after being ordered quarantine. 

Cases of the virus skew toward the younger crowd in C-U. More than 33% of people who’ve tested positive in the county — 2,521 of them — are between 10 and 20 years old. Another 2,084 cases come from people 20 to 30 years of age. 

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