Champaign County active COVID-19 cases triple in a week

Cameron Krasucki

Student John Keller checks into the COVID-19 testing site located at State Farm Center on Oct. 9. Twelve county residents have died from the virus in a two-week span.

By Ethan Simmons, News Editor

After a backlog of tests was processed, Champaign County added more than 1,100 new COVID-19 cases to its total in the last two days. The active case count has tripled in a week — from 528 on Nov. 11 to 1,589 on Wednesday. 

Another two county residents, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 100s, died from the virus on Tuesday and Wednesday. During the last 13 days, 12 county residents have died from the virus, marking Champaign’s deadliest period from COVID-19. 

Wednesday brought 225 new confirmed cases in Champaign County, along with 144 new recoveries and 117 more people quarantined. 

Hospitalizations also jumped up by four, up to 16 residents currently hospitalized for the virus. 

Test positivity in the county and for Region 6 continues to climb ahead of the Tier 3 mitigations that begin on Friday. 

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As of Saturday, when the most recent data was shared, Region 6’s seven-day average test positivity stood at 14%, while Champaign County’s — both excluding University tests — held at 9.6%. 

Counting the University’s tests, seven-day positivity for the region would be just 5.4%. 

The University has increased its test load in the last week, after the order for faculty, staff and grad students to test twice a week once again. 

On Monday, the University conducted 13,545 COVID-19 tests on campus, the most since Sept. 4, and found 51 new cases. 

In the week ended Sunday, another 282 people tested positive on campus after more than 64,000 new tests. As of Monday, 3,851 people have tested positive for COVID-19 on campus after more than 835,000 tests. 

@esimmsnews

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