Champaign County has conducted over 500,000 tests for COVID-19 since the pandemic began as of Sunday.

Champaign outpaces all other Illinois counties in tests per capita. Per the Illinois Department of Public Health, Champaign County has conducted over 2.33 tests per resident, over four times that of Sangamon County, the runner-up. 

On Sunday, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District confirmed another 59 cases of COVID-19 after 20,323 new tests.

CUPHD also reported another 65 recoveries. Of the county’s 4,608 confirmed cases, 4,244 are considered recovered, while the active case count sits at 344. 

Recovered doesn’t mean the patient is absent of any symptoms, however. According to CUPHD’s Julie Pryde, “recovery”  means the person is no longer infectious and that they can leave isolation or hospitalization. They may still be dealing with debilitating conditions from the virus.

CUPHD reports four hospitalizations for the virus, the same since last Monday, and 20 deaths since the pandemic began. 

ZIP code 61820 is Champaign County’s biggest contributor to the pandemic: 190 of the active cases reside there, and there have been 2,167 confirmed cases there. Thirty of Sunday’s new cases were from the 61820 ZIP code. 

The ZIP code 61820 encapsulates the area within I-74 on the north, Prospect Avenue on the west, Windsor Road on the south and Wright Street on the east, covering most of Campustown. 

The same ZIP code leads Champaign County in total tests with 218,559. Adjacent ZIP codes 61801 and 61821 are second and third in county testing, with 114,673 tests and 43,659 tests to date. 

The ZIP code with the next highest number of active cases is 61801, with 30. 

Of the county’s 502,886 total tests, 66% have been done on people between the ages of 10 and 30 years old, while 67% of county cases have come from the same age groups. 

CUPHD reports breakdowns of cases and tests by race. According to their webpage, 64% of people who’ve tested positive in the county are white, 15% are African American, 6% are Asian, 15% are “Other” and 1% are unknown. 

By ethnicity, 16% of people who’ve tested positive identify as Hispanic, but only 3.3% of the tested population is Hispanic. 

Other cases to tests disparities exist in racial demographics. Asian people represent 6% of cases despite comprising 18.6% of tests, while African Americans comprise 15% of cases in the county with only 8.2% of tests. 

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